


Kapitel des Eies

by JoCarroll



Series: Princess Tutu: The Untold Story [1]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-02-28 15:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 158,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13274124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarroll/pseuds/JoCarroll
Summary: Once upon a time there was a man who died.  The man’s work was the writing and telling of stories.  But he could not defy death.  The last story he was working on was about a brave and handsome Prince who battles a crafty Raven.  But now it seems the story and their battle will go on for eternity.  “I’m sick and tired of this!” cried the Raven.  “I’m sick and tired of this!” cried the Prince as well.  The Raven escaped from the pages of the story and the Prince pursued the fell creature.  In the end the Prince shattered his own heart to seal the Raven away.  This power, which had been granted solely to him, was nevertheless forbidden.The shattered shards of the Prince’s heart scattered throughout the town and sought places to settle in the hearts of people who had a void in them.  Without his heart, the Prince was cursed to wander without feeling, or even remembering who he was.  Inside the town the story and time, which had become entangled, ceased to move forward.  Then one day, the story started writing itself…Just then, a murmur came from somewhere.  “This is great,” said the old man who was supposed to have died!





	1. Die Weiße Ente

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NineBlades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NineBlades/gifts), [OtterlyDeerlightful](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtterlyDeerlightful/gifts).



> This work is intended to be a novelization/reimagination of the Princess Tutu Anime originally written by Michiko Yokote, with some elements adapted from the manga written by Mizuo Shinonome. However, in this adaptation certain details have been changed or expounded upon which hardcore fans of the series may not approve of. Numbering among those is the removal of certain anthropomorphic characters who have all been replaced with entirely human counterparts, though the essence of the characters remain and tribute is paid to the animals originally portrayed where possible.  
>   
> This is not intended to be a word-for-word blow-by-blow retelling of the original story, though the spoken narrative is largely taken from the English dub. I have sought to nest the world of Princess Tutu into the real world including physical location and timeline, honoring the incredibly detailed universe originally created. I have utilized mythologies referenced throughout the series to frame the alternative history. Hence the story takes place somewhere in Bavaria around the middle of the 20th century. Chapter titles are largely adapted from fairytales and ballets that would have been known around that time.  
>   
> Given the European setting, some character names have been adapted to suit a more Western origin and hence you may notice odd spellings or slightly different names. The most contentious of these character names is that of the heroine Ahiru/Duck. I sought for a while for a Western girl’s name with the root meaning being something near to "duck", but in the spirit of preserving the essence of the character’s name I chose to adapt it to “Aria” which is phonetically most similar. Although she is also referred to as “Duck”.  
>   
> In adapting this story I will also give details on how magic works in this world, the sources and origins of powers, additional backgrounds to most characters, and a richer history to create context for the events. This is where most of the retelling’s changes will found from as some elements of the story will be changed or expanded upon, and some few characters will be fundamentally altered and a few new characters introduced. Any characters introduced in the story were created from side characters shown (however briefly) in the original story. However, the events themselves from the original series will remain largely intact.  
>   
> Lastly, the final major change I have instituted is to “age-up” the characters to match the reality of the situations being presented (and because I am incredibly unsuited at writing anything preteen in both characters and content). To this end, Fakhir and Rue are both presented around 17/18, Mytho (???), and Aria is 15-going-on-50. The classes attended by the students in both ballet and academia have also been adapted to suit what ballet students receiving a classical mid-20th-century education would be taking.  
>   
> This project will entail two full-length novels (approximating around 120,000 words) for the two seasons aired that will be posted in chapters on a semi-weekly schedule. Most episodes have been divided into two chapters each. The story will then continue and be ultimately concluded in two additional works as time and writing schedules allow.  
>   
> Disclaimers:  
> • I do not speak German, all German titles have been researched and translated to the best of my humble abilities, but if anyone native to the language has any corrections, please let me know.  
> • I am a martial artist not a ballerina (save for one briefly misguided foray when I was 5-years-old), though I have amassed a small collection of textbooks on ballet my knowledge is entirely theoretical and I do not guarantee any accuracy on that front.  
> • Some material may not be suited for the age-group originally targeted by the anime. This may include language (appropriate to the period and character ages); poetic violence; sexual innuendo; verbal, physical, and psychological abuse.  
> • If I receive enough requests for a glossary, one will be created and provided. Until then, I recommend the internet search engine of your choice.

 

**_The White Duck_ **

 

     Breathing hurt.   
     That was her first conscious thought as the world slowly came into focus.  Everything existed only through the haze of pain.  It started in her chest, a sharp slicing pain that held her down every time she inhaled.  And then it spread down her torso into her limbs.  It held her suspended in its grip and she found herself praying for that sweet blissful state of unconsciousness.  She prayed for death.  But death didn’t come.  
     For an eternity all she knew was the pain and it could have been seconds and it could have been years.  Then a new sensation entered her awareness.  Something wet was falling on her face.  It had a dull rhythm, not quite as random as rain.  It gave her something to focus on besides the pain.  Slowly, almost unbearably slowly, she found she was even able to move.  Her muscles twitched, raw skin scraping against dirt and stone.  
_I’m outside somewhere._    
     There was a strange sort of relief in that knowledge.  She felt of the dirt, digging into it, feeling its texture and dampness, clinging to the earth.  And then she could smell it—the strong earthy scent of growing things and she could hear the sound of rain falling on water.  Struggling against her own body, she opened her eyes.  
     A grey sky stretched overhead and she saw leaves and branches, and the hulking presence of a figure looming over her.  He wore a broad-brimmed hat, and it was the rain falling off his hat that she felt on her face.  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the little duck.”  
     She tried to move her mouth, tried to find the air to speak but she hadn’t the strength.  
     “Why, you’re not dead are you?” he asked in his gravelly voice.  He sounded surprised by that and bent over her, blocking the rain and the light.  She couldn’t quite make out the details of his face under the shadow of his hat.  “Ah, I see,” he whispered.  “So this is how it is.  It all makes sense now.”  
     She wanted to ask him what he meant, but no words would come out.  
     “Well, well, well what a conundrum we have here.  You and I trapped together, who would have ever thought?”   
_“…hey!  You there, what are you—”_  
     The figure straightened up and seemed to look around.  “Ah yes,” he spoke almost to himself, “Yes this is good.  Good, good.  I think I finally know how this story should end.”  
     She blinked.  
     The rain was gone.  The pain was gone.   _It never existed, did it?_   She looked down at herself and saw her face reflected back in the water of a still pond.  Two bright blue eyes set either side of a slender black bill.  She shook her fluffy head, shedding droplets of dew that splashed and sent ripples dancing across the smooth surface of the pond.   _Did I dream that?_  
     The sun wasn’t quite up yet, the pearly light only enough to see the cutout shapes of trees and beyond them buildings and houses.  Somewhere in the distance a bell began to toll, echoing eerily through the still, misty morning.  The little duckling paddled placidly across her pond, her soft white down almost opalescent in the predawn light.  She was alone, but then she’d always been alone.  She didn’t fit in with the other ducks and never had.  That’s why she swam on this small pond by herself every day, staring through the trees toward the distant buildings where the people lived.   
     She was fascinated by people.  Fascinated by the way they moved and the way they spoke.  But most of all, she was fascinated by the way they  _danced._   She wanted to do that.  She wanted to move on long legs as graceful and elegant as the ballerinas that seemed to almost float as they twirled in time to the music.  They were so  _beautiful!_    
     The duck sighed and looked down again at her own face in the water.  Even for a duck she wasn’t very attractive.  The other ducklings her age all had soft fluffy down with bold stripes and a broad black cap.  She was just a plain dirty white with a dark bill and overly long grey legs.  She was oversized and awkward and out of place, and with another sigh she looked away from her own reflection back toward the town and the people who lived there.  
     That’s what she wanted to be:  a  _person_.  
     Like the Prince.  
     Almost as if her thought had summoned him, he appeared at the edge of her pond looking as insubstantial as the morning mist.   _The Prince!_   Her blue eyes went wide, and she swam a bit closer as he dipped one toe into the cool water of her little pond.  He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen with hair as white and glistening as new-fallen snow, and eyes as warm and golden as morning sunshine.  His handsome face was unlined with age, as eternal as the first time she had spied it through the shadows of her gloomy little world.  When was that?  Days ago?  Weeks?  It was so hard to trace time with the mind of a bird that knew time only as the difference between night and day.   
     She ruffled her fluffy feathers and straightened up while the Prince stepped forward, impossibly balancing his weight on the surface of the water.   _Magic!_  her little bird mind realized.  But hadn’t she seen him do more fantastic things than that?  Had she?  She shook her head again but couldn’t recall.  And then all thoughts of magic passed away and her attention became captivated by the Prince.  He stretched out his long arms as graceful as wings at his sides … and began to dance...  
     “Quack?” the little duck squawked in her own strange tongue.  But inside her thoughts were tumbling.   _I want… I want to dance with him too.  With the Prince!_   For that is always how she’d known him, and hadn’t she known him all her life?  For if he was a Prince and she a duck, then perhaps a kiss from him could turn her into a girl.   
_But I’m a duck,_  she mourned,  _in voice and looks.  Just a duck.  I can’t dance with him.  I can’t even hold his hand._ And why should a duck even have such a thought?  The memory of a hand holding someone else’s, the longing to reach out and twine her fingers into his?  Where did it come from?  It made no sense.  Still the Prince danced on, oblivious to the melancholy of his feathered witness as she watched from where she swam near the opposite shore.   
_The Prince’s eyes look so lonely,_  she observed.  Which was astute for a duck.   _Won’t you laugh?_  she wondered.   _Please show me your smile, my Prince._   For he had such a beautiful smile, and such a warm laugh it could make the summer sunlight seem dark in comparison.   
     “Quack?”  Wait?  How could a duck know such a thing?  Yet she did, didn’t she?  Hadn’t she always?  A white-hot jolt of something not quite pain, and not quite pleasant shot through her and the memory of the Prince’s smile and laugh burned away into nothingness.  
     Shaking her head again, the duck muttered a sad little sigh and the morning mist closed around her as the vision of the dancing Prince disappeared.  She turned away, prepared to go back to the drudgery of her far-too-common life.  Just a duck doing duckly things.  
_“Well, well, well, you care for him, don’t you?”_ A disembodied voice chuckled hauntingly out from the abyss.  
     The little duck froze, heart beating rapidly, every muscle in her body vibrating with apprehension.  She’d heard that voice before … that dark gloating voice.  It was so familiar and entirely out of place.  The duck looked around as a prickling feeling crept down her spine, “Quack?”  
_“A little duck like you,”_  the voice mused amusedly, echoing eerily through the trees.  
     Her blood went cold and the image of a monster arose unbidden in her mind.  Great bright eyes swirling with madness, gaping white teeth in a hideous grin, sallow skin hanging loose off a shiny skull, white hair growing wild around an ancient face with great plumes rising from its head, its shoulders draped in a crimson cloak and horrible white hands stretched into claws and stained dark with … dirt?  Ink?  Blood…?  
     A sudden shock raced straight through her feathers and the duck felt certain that someone,  _something,_  was watching her.  The air seemed to gather close and heavy around her, the morning light was abruptly dark.   _It can’t be him, it can’t be him, it can’t be him!_  
     Pain pricked just over her heart, the memory of an old wound as she turned around in a tight, panicked circle and came face to—well— _eye_  with a pair of giant crazed eyes staring at her through the dark fog.  Her little heart froze in her little duck breast and the fear paralyzed her.  Then, grotesquely, a great gaping mouth appeared above the eyes and a shape took form around it of … the terrible monster-man standing on its head!  
     “QUACK!” the little duck screeched and flapped her fluffy wings, paddling backwards as fast as she could while the old man grinned his manic leer growing closer and closer and… 

 

     “MONSTER!”   
     Aria woke from the dream with a jerk, still trying to escape the visage of the crazy old man, and went tumbling out of her loft.  She fell with a crash to the hard plank floor of her room on the fourth story of the Gold Crown Academy girl’s dormitory.   
     Someone from the room below kindly threw what sounded like an entire silverware set at the ceiling.  “Shut up!” an angry voice cried out.  
     “Sorry!” Aria called back through the floorboards, then bit her lip.  “Oops.”  She giggled at her transgression and straightened up into a sitting position, her night dress pooling in her lap.   _What a weird dream._  
     She touched her chest right where the pain had been and looked down.  Of course, there was nothing there but her pendant, a dark red jewel that she’d worn for forever.  She closed a hand around it and looked up.  Golden sunlight streamed in through her dormer window, highlighting the dust motes that hung suspended in the air.  A chorus of birdsong echoed outside, banishing all thoughts of ducks and ponds and crazy old man-monsters.  The only thing that remained blazoned in her memory was the Prince.  
     “Mytho,” she sighed dreamily, because of course that’s who her unconscious mind had cast as the Prince in her dream.  Mytho, the school heartthrob and premier danseur of Gold Crown Academy. The boy she’d been in love with since she started looking at boys—Mytho.  She hugged her knees and gazed out the window, picturing herself waltzing magically across the surface of a pond in his arms.  Needless to say, in her daydream she wasn’t a duck.  
     “Weird,” she muttered again, shaking off the dream and climbing to her feet.  She turned to the little square of a mirror that hung on one wall and touched her nose, almost as if to assure herself that it hadn’t become a black bill in the night.  Nope, the same familiar freckled face looked back at her and she smiled.   _I guess it’s because everyone calls me Duck that I keep having weird dreams like that._   She’d earned the moniker seven years ago in her first—and last—school performance when she and the rest of the beginner’s class had paraded around stage in ridiculous duck costumes to the amusement of the parent benefactors of the school.  She was the only one who forgot all the choreography and tripped and fell on stage.  Eight times.   
     It didn’t seem to matter that Aria had been in the ballet program at Gold Crown for as long she could remember, she never really improved.  Okay maybe she wasn’t as diligent in her practices as some of the other girls, and maybe her mind wandered a bit during classes, and maybe she could focus on her studies more outside the classroom and studio.  But the unfortunate truth that couldn’t be overcome was that she was as clumsy on the stage as she was off it, and it was a wonder they hadn’t tossed her out altogether.  Though Mr. Catt, the ballet director, had kindly suggested once that she consider taking up a less grueling art… like finger painting.   
     Aria laughed at the thought and threw open her window, letting in the warm summer morning as she leaned on the sill.  Her eyes strayed almost immediately to the dorm facing hers across the small courtyard, and the oriel window with its domed turret that marked Mytho’s room.  A red curtain hung in that window, billowing softly in the morning breeze and she wondered if maybe he was standing behind it.  She’d had plenty of dreams where she was a duck, but not once had she ever dreamt of Mytho as a prince.   _I wonder if it means anything?_   Though what it could possibly mean, she had no idea.   
     A bluebird landed by her elbow on the windowsill and tweeted at her expectantly.  She looked down at it speculatively, “You’re putting on a little weight there, Tiel.”  
     It tweeted at her again, hopping a few inches closer to peck at her fingers resting on the sill.  Another little bird, this one a sparrow, landed on the sill and was soon followed by three more.  
     “Alright, alright,” she laughed, turning back into the room to fetch her washing bowl.  She set it on the sill and pulled out the bag of dried bread she collected daily from the cafeteria, crumbling several handfuls into the basin.  The birds immediately dug into their feast and several more landed in the window to join them.   
     Reaching across the others without disturbing their breakfast, Aria picked up a small white dove in both hands.  “Let’s see how that leg is doing, Java,” she crooned to it.  Carefully she stripped off the linen that held half a tongue depressor in place and tested the newly healed limb.  The dove wriggled uncomfortably in her grip until she set it back down, “Looks like it’s all better,” she announced, plucking out a choice morsel and handing it to the dove.  
     A sweet little yellow bird whistled its way into the room and landed on the back of Aria’s hand, still singing its happy tune.   
     “Well good morning to you too, Canary Mom,” Aria smiled down at it.  “Your chicks are getting ready to fly soon, aren’t they?”  She leaned close to the little canary and whispered confidentially, “So, what was Mytho up to just now?” Not that she expected a reply.  The little canary had built her nest outside the school heartthrob’s window, but had remained silent on the nature of what she may or may not have observed inside  
     The canary cocked her head inquisitively, tweeted once, and then flew to the edge of the bowl.  
     Aria laughed in spite of herself and threw her arms open wide.  “It’s a beautiful day!” she sang out.  The birds all whistled their agreement before returning to their bread.  At the center of town, a bell began to toll and Aria listened to it for a few seconds before the import of that sound struck her.  “The bell!” she realized in alarm.  “I’m late!”   
     It was a fact of life at Gold Crown Academy that the sun rose and set, summer turned into winter and back into summer, students gossiped incessantly, and Aria Arima was always late.  She hurried to her clothes chest and pulled out her school uniform, trying in vain to shake out the wrinkles from where she’d tossed it in there the night before.  Giving up, she yanked her nightdress off over her head and shrugged into her uniform blouse, buttoning and unbuttoning it only to miss a button again and give up.  It was still misaligned when she tucked it into her knee length grey pleated skirt, the collar rumpled and sticking up in odd places.  She grabbed her jacket and her books in one hand, and her shoes and socks in the other and skipped down the four steps to her door.  
     Aria went flying out of her room, the door bouncing off the wall as she threw it open and careened down the corridor.  “Oh Piqué, Lillie why didn’t you wake me up!” she called out as she ran.  “You know Mr. Catt said I’d get detention if I was late for one more practice this week!”  
     A pair of doors opened behind her when she raced by and two girls poked their heads out in confusion, rubbing sleep from their eyes.  “Say, isn’t it still 6 o’clock?” Piqué asked with a yawn.  
     “Scatterbrained as usual,” Lillie shook her head exasperatedly, “She’s so cute!”       
     Aria raced on, ignorant of the exchange, and tripped down the stairs two at a time.  She paused to pull on her shoes and socks in the foyer and caught sight of herself in the decorative mirror that hung on one wall.  Her coppery red hair was awry, loose curls frizzing out around her face in all directions.  She looked like a crazy runaway clown two tents short of a three-ring circus.  “Oh for the love of ballet!” she swore.  She shoved one arm into her jacket, her book strap tangling in her sleeve, and pushed the door open even as she gathered the tangled mess of her hair high onto her head, snapping a twig—with leaf still attached—off the blossomed bower that fronted the walk to hold it in place.  
     Then she was wheeling around the pas de deux fountain in the center of the courtyard, and dashing through the wrought iron gates to turn up the street toward the Academy.  The Gold Crown Academy of the Arts was situated on the opposite side of the canal that ran through Goldkrone Towne, about a five-minute walk from the dorms on a normal day.  Aria hardly ever made that trip in five minutes.  Her best time was a minute and a half, though she could barely breathe when she reached the ballet school after  _that_  sprint.  
     Today she was aiming for a three-minute run, her chunky black shoes clattering on the cobblestones as she wove through the early morning foot traffic.  She was panting for breath by the time she reached the wide bridge that spanned the canal to the imposing face of the Academy.  Aside from the cathedral of St. Godfrey’s, the Academy’s administrative building was the largest building in town looking more like a castle with its turrets and towers and corbie gables, and the large windowed arch in its face that was the perfect size and shape for a portcullis.   
     Breathlessly Aria slowed down, clutching at the stitch in her side.   _Wow, what a weird thought.  Mytho a Prince and Gold Crown a castle?  What do you think this is Aria, a fairytale?_   She giggled at the thought and pictured it:  Prince Mytho in a velvet doublet like they wore onstage in the Nutcracker last Christmas, and she in a beautiful flowing white gown with blossoms in her hair.   _And we’d dance a pas de deux together just like the Prince and the Sugar Plum Fairy._    
     A single stray thought drifted in from some dark forgotten corner of her mind.   _Except I didn’t wear the dress, did I?_   As if in response to that thought a white light flashed in her mind hot and sudden.   _Wait, what?_  The hair on the back of her neck began to prickle and she spun in place, certain that someone was watching her.  But the bridge was empty, the bright sun bouncing off the canal water on either side.   _So why did I feel like someone was watching me?_  
     A creepy-crawly feeling spread over her skin and a tingling sensation worked its way down to her fingers and toes.   _Why do I still feel like someone’s watching me?_   She swallowed hard, “Who’s there?” she called out.   
     There was no answer.   
     The summer morning felt suddenly cold and Aria rubbed her hands briskly over her arms, surprised to find they were covered in goosebumps.  A strange feeling lanced through her and she backed a few steps over the bridge.  “Show yourself!” she cried out.  
     No response, just the flash in her mind of a pair of manic eyes.  Aria turned and ran, fleeing now not because she was late but because she was trying to escape the  _something_  she felt on the bridge.  She crashed through the chandeliered foyer of the Administrative building and raced out over the empty quad, tumbling head over heels down the stone stairs in front of the central fountain.  She was on her feet again and moving, her knees stinging where she’d scraped them on the rough paving stones, but she ignored the pain as she dashed around the swan fountain and sprinted toward the ballet school.   
     When she finally skidded to a stop she was gasping at the air, her pulse racing, her limbs vibrating with tension, her heart pounding in her chest.  She leaned back against the cool yellow bricks by the side entrance in the shadow of the outdoor staircase.   _What was that?_  she wondered wildly, even as she told herself aloud, “You’re being stupid, Aria.  There’s nothing dangerous in Goldkrone Towne.  Nothing happens here ever.”  She clutched her books to her chest and took another deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart.   
     It was eventually the books cutting into her ribcage which reminded her why she was hurrying in the first place.   _Crap!_   She turned quickly and reached for the door, bolting inside and hastening into the girl’s locker room to change into her leotard and tights.  The room was already empty, the other girls having doubtlessly dressed and arrived to warmups by now.  Aria threw her books into her locker and ripped off her jacket while she kicked off her shoes and socks.  She skipped the hooks and hangar in favor of tossing her uniform into a rumpled pile at the bottom of the locker and pulled out her dance clothes.  She dressed on her way to the door, pulling her tights up to her knees where they tangled and sent her flying to the floor.  
     “Oomph,” she grunted, twisting around and straightening them out while she struggled to her feet and stepped into her leotard.  She pulled on her ballet flats one at a time, hopping on one foot as she threw open the locker room door and stepped out into the hall.  Climbing the stairs, she snapped a yellow head band on to hold back the worst of her curls, and threw herself the last few steps to the door of the large studio.  Aria pushed the door open and bowed respectfully, hoping that contrition would keep her out of detention.  “I’m sorry for being late,” she announced waiting for the teacher’s judgment with her eyes closed.  
     Silence greeted her, and she stood so for a moment, half-bowed and face downcast until she realized that the room was empty.  Bewildered, she straightened up.  “There’s no one here.”  Shadows fell across the room gathering gloomily in the corners.  The only light came through the arched windows and skylights reflecting a thousand times off the studio’s mirrored walls.  A riot of colors fell across the floor cast by the high stained-glass window across the room which glowed in the morning light.  Red and green and gold, but mostly a light sky-blue that colored the floor like the serene surface of a smooth pond.  
     Cautiously, Aria stepped into the room.  The door gently swung shut behind her.  “Where is everyone?” she pondered aloud.  She tried to remember if Mr. Catt had said anything about cancelling morning classes.  
     Across the room the gramophone came to life and Aria jumped in surprise.  Gears began turning and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite wafted over the silent studio.  She froze, eyes wide, as her dream became a strange reality.  A figure straightened up from the gramophone and stood facing the window on the far wall.  He hadn’t seen her, he wasn’t paying any attention to anything but the music.  While Aria watched he turned toward her and she saw that his eyes were closed.  He stepped forward, his foot brushing over the wide blue stain of light on the floor, stretched out his arms … and began to dance.   
     “Mytho!” she gasped in awe.  Surely she was still sleeping.  This was a dream, right?  It couldn’t be real.  And yet there he was just as he was in her dream, dancing across the surface of a painted pond.  He moved with a fluid power, at once as soft as a floating feather and then springing to action he took flight.  Aria knew she should go, she should turn around and leave quickly before he realized she was there, but she just… couldn’t.  She was utterly mesmerized watching him as he danced with a skill so innate it was like he was born to be nothing else.  He danced as though his life depended on it, as if the world depended on it, and in such a way that made her believe that was true.   
     A picture formed in her head of the Prince from her dreams, except instead of the uniform black tights and white shirt Mytho wore now, the Prince was dressed in a blue doublet and hose with a strangely elaborate sword in one hand.  The Prince could dance too, but his was a dance of death against his enemies.  He raised the sword high overhead and shouted a battle cry, leaping over a checkerboard floor to meet his foe.  Before her Mytho leapt the exact same way and Aria gaped.  A white-hot bolt of energy stabbed her head and the picture of the Prince disappeared.  Mytho stopped dancing.  The music stopped playing.  Aria caught her breath when he turned to face her.  
     They stood so for a moment, staring at each other, before Aria felt her face growing hot.  “I’m sorry,” she stammered, backing quickly away.  “I didn’t mean to intrude.  I wasn’t just spying on you, I mean I was, but I didn’t know you were here and I’m disturbing you, aren’t I?  Of course I am, I should go.”  She babbled so quickly her tongue tripped over her words, unable to stop the idiotic things coming out of her mouth.  That’s how it always was when she got flustered, she’d always say the first thing that came to her mind and rarely was any of it useful or interesting.  “Please excuse me,” she went on pointlessly, “I’m leaving right away.”  She turned to go, and her legs and feet got all tangled up, and wasn’t that just her luck?  She tried to right herself, missed, and went hurtling toward the floor.   
     Aria tried to throw out her arms to catch herself, but she was all twisted up, plunging toward the hardwood floor hip first.   _This is going to hurt._  
     Except it didn’t.  
     In a flash Mytho was at her side, catching her before she could hit the ground and she found herself suddenly, awkwardly, in his arms.  She froze, incapable of processing what had just happened and where she was now.  Shame coursed through her.  Here she’d been marveling at his grace and she couldn’t even take three steps without falling down.   _Stupid silly girl!_   She scolded herself, eyes squeezed shut.   _He must think I’m a total klutz!_    
     Then she realized he hadn’t let her go.  Opening her eyes Aria looked up to see him gazing down at her.  He was kneeling on the ground, arms holding her lightly, and his expression was as blank as an empty stage.  But his eyes…  _Wow what beautiful eyes,_ she thought, and at least had the presence of mind not to say aloud.They seemed to ripple with liquid amber and sunlight, just as they had that last night when—  
     A white-hot spear lanced through her head.   _Wait, what was I just thinking?_ Aria couldn’t chase down the memory.  Or was it a memory?  Maybe it was a fantasy?  How could she think clearly anyway when looking into those eyes?  There was something there in his gaze like the ghost of a great pain, or the vague memory of a loss, and she found herself wishing oddly that he would smile at her …  _just one last time._  
     Reality slammed into her.  This was  _so_  not a dream. Quickly she straightened up to her knees and pushed herself away.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she apologized, tearing her gaze from those eyes to his chest which wasn’t much better considering how the white shirt he wore defined every muscle there.  “I’m bothering you?  I’m really such a scatterbrain and I’m so bad at things like everything and on top of that I’m always so clumsy.  Like Piqué and Lillie say I act like a duck, that’s why everyone calls me Duck.  They all think I’m odd.  An odd duck, which I guess means I look like a boy, or maybe I would if I cut off all my hair.  I mean don’t you think so?  Shoot even I think so.”  She finished her inane ramble staring at the floor in front of her.  
     “I don’t.”  
     The soft words took a full second to sink in and Aria looked up at him in shock.  “What?  You don’t?”  
     His face was still blank, no trace of a smile or any emotion.  But there was something in his eyes, something that pulled at her elusively.  For a second she saw herself reflected in those eyes.  Only the face she saw wasn’t hers really.   
     “I don’t,” he repeated, his voice soft and low.  “You’re too pretty to be a boy.”  
     “Wha—” she backpedaled further, clapping her hands over her mouth to keep her stray thoughts from bubbling out.   _I can’t believe that.  No one’s ever said anything like that to me!_    
     He just stared back at her, those eyes of warm amber so lonely but filled with such light Aria felt she might get lost in them again.  And then fluidly he reached out and Aria flinched as his hand reached past her.  She felt a slight tug in her hair, cheeks burning, and saw that he’d pulled the leaf out of her curls.  He smoothed it in his hand, one small perfect evergreen leaf, and then looked back up at her with those amazing eyes.  Aria held her breath.  
     The moment was abruptly broken when the door behind her cracked opened.  Aria’s head whipped around in fright ready to apologize again even though she wasn’t doing anything wrong.  A sharp pang of dread twisted inside her when she saw who it was.  There was no mistaking those dark green eyes and that perpetual frown.  It was Mytho’s roommate:  Fakhir.  
     Her apology died on her lips when he pushed the door open and swept the room with his eyes, his gaze cutting through her like a knife to fall on Mytho.  He strode purposefully into the studio, immediately intimidating in appearance and demeanor.  His crisp blue jacket and white pants were perfectly tailored and pressed, his white uniform shoes polished to a shine so reflective Aria could see herself in them.  They clacked loudly on the hardwood floor.  He towered over both of them, a seething barbican of self-importance and indignant outrage standing over Mytho who was still sitting on the ground.  “What are you doing?” he demanded, his low voice dark and full of danger.  
     Fakhir was Mytho’s opposite in every way.  Standing side-by-side they looked like night and day, Mytho with his white-blonde hair and golden eyes and skin so pale as to almost be translucent, and Fakhir with his inky-black ponytail and olive-skinned complexion and eyes so dark green they sometimes looked black when he glared.  But the difference was more than just looks.  Mytho was the kind of boy who would save some silly girl from cracking her head open even if it was her own fault.  Aria was pretty sure Fakhir would have let her brain herself and then step over her body on his way out the door.  
     Fakhir was the one responsible for Aria’s unfortunate nickname.   
     Seven years ago, just after her ill-fated performance he’d been walking with someone across the quad, they’d pointed to her and asked who she was, and he barely noticing her shrugged her off,  _“Oh that’s just the duck, you remember.”_ By the end of that day the name had caught on and all she heard everywhere she went was:   _Ugly Duck!  Ugly Duck!_  
     Even Aria’s usual optimism was challenged in the face of that onslaught.  By the end of that week everyone had forgotten she’d had any name but Duck and she was resolved to run away from Goldkrone Towne forever.  It was Mytho who stepped in and turned things around.  She was leaving.  She’d actually had a bag packed and thrown over her shoulder and was on her way out of the dorm courtyard when the older student walked through the gate in front of her.   _“You’re the one they call Duck?”_   he’d asked.  
     It had taken all of her courage just then not to cry.  
_“I like ducks,”_ he’d said, and then walked away.  
     Aria had never understood how Mytho could be friends with someone like Fakhir.  He didn’t seem to be intimidated by the glowering figure though.  He looked up—way up—to see the other boy’s face clearly.  “Fakhir,” he greeted him emotionlessly.  
     “Did I not tell you to inform me when you go out?”  Fakhir asked, his voice hard and framed with anger.  
     Mytho regarded him seriously, “Yes.”  
     “We’re going,” Fakhir snapped, “Stand up.”  
     Aria’s mouth dropped open in shock.  Who did he think he was talking to Mytho like that, and  _why_  was Mytho going along with it?  She stared at the two boys not believing her own ears.  
     Mytho didn’t move from his spot on the floor.  
     Fakhir propped an irritated fist on one hip, “What’s wrong?”  Although he looked as contemptuous as ever, there was the faintest trace of concern in his words.  
     “My foot,” Mytho muttered.  
     “Foot?” Fakhir sounded alarmed, “Did you twist it?”  
     “Yes.”  
     “Idiot,” he swore under his breath.  
     Aria’s eyes went wide.  Righteous indignation flared up within her.  “Wait, what?  WHAT?”  She didn’t realize she’d exclaimed aloud until Fakhir turned his green-eyed glare on her.  Quite suddenly she felt very small still kneeling on the floor, and just as her sorry luck would have it she heard herself babbling again.  “It wasn’t his fault you see, I wasn’t supposed to be here. so I was leaving only I tripped and started to fall and Mytho caught me.  So you see, it’s all my fault really, and—”  
     Fakhir turned away, dismissing her as if she were nothing but an annoying fly.  He spoke to Mytho, “What were you thinking doing such a pointless thing?”  
     Aria sprang to her feet, coming immediately to Mytho’s defense.  “Like I said he was protecting me—”  
     “That’s why I said pointless,” Fakhir growled out.  
     His words bit into her and she swallowed hard, suddenly silenced.  
     Turning back to Mytho, Fakhir leaned down and gripped the other boy’s arm.  “Stand up,” he said, hauling Mytho to his feet.  “We’re going back.”  
     “You don’t have to be so rough with him!” Aria cried out indignantly.  
     “Quiet!” Fakhir snapped as he marched Mytho—who remained strangely silent about the entire spectacle—out of the room.  
     Hot fury burned in her mouth and she balled up her fists as the strange urge to … to … something?  Argue?  Fight?  What?  “Argh!” Aria threw her hands up in the air uselessly.  Whatever the urge had been it was gone now no matter how hard she tried to chase it down.  “Pointless huh?” she muttered mutinously, glaring at the door Fakhir and Mytho had disappeared through.  “Well maybe, but you don’t have to be so rude about it.”   
     A distant clanging shattered the still air and Aria glanced around in surprise.  “The bell again?  Wait…” the empty studio … the empty school…  
     Aria dropped her head into her hands, “Stupid Duck!”


	2. Ballett der unausgeschlüpften Küken

_**Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks** _

 

     An hour later Aria was doing warmups at the barre in preparation for her morning class as she regaled her friends with her morning’s antics.  Piqué and Lillie, both sixteen, were a year ahead of Aria at school and had taken her under wing after the Ugly Duck incident.  Piqué knew a little of what it was to be teased—her first name was Maude prompting the school bully to call her “Muddy Maude” until the day Piqué punched her out on the quad.  Aria had also long suspected that Piqué was the chief reason the “Ugly” had been dropped from Ugly Duck.  
     “You wouldn’t have gotten into that mess if you’d just taken the time to look at a clock,” Piqué admonished Aria when she was done telling her story.   
     “Yeah but I was panicked,” Aria replied, hooking her heel over the barre and leaning forward in a long stretch.  “I never wake up early, so by the time I hear the bell go off I’m usually already late.”  
     Lillie laughed from where she was stretching on the floor.  “That’s why you’re our dear, scatterbrained Duck!”  
     Piqué rolled her eyes expressively.  She was a master eye-roller.  “Don’t encourage her,” she scolded.  Turning back to Aria, she scowled.  “You’ve just got to  _think,_  Duck.  That’s your problem.”  
     “I do think,” Aria shrugged, stretching her other leg out.  “I can’t seem to stop thinking.  But then my thoughts sort of just wander off and I forget what I was thinking about and end up thinking about something else.”  
     Piqué heaved a tragic sigh and threw up her hands dramatically, “You’re hopeless, Duck.”  
     “I know,” Aria smiled back at her teasingly, “but there’s hope for me yet.”  
     Despite herself, Piqué laughed.  She bumped Aria with her shoulder and leaned a hip against the barre.  “And hey,” she whispered confidentially, “At least you had the great honor of talking to Fakhir, so it’s okay.”  It was no secret that Piqué had a crush on the school’s resident rebel.  
     Aria’s expression clouded, “He’s not really a nice person, you know.”  She recalled again the harsh sting of Fakhir’s words,  _“That’s why I said pointless.”_   Fury burned at the pit of her stomach and she imagined about a thousand things she  _should_  have said and wouldn’t have the chance to now.  
     “Yeah,” Piqué murmured dreamily, “but the way he  _dances._ ”  
     Aria laughed, “Mytho’s better.”  
     “Hey!” Piqué burst out, “you know Fakhir is the best.”  
     “Besides Duck,” Lillie reminded her as she climbed to her feet, “Mytho has already got Rue.”  
     “I know,” Aria shrugged, affecting carelessness even if Lillie’s comment dug under her skin just a little bit.  Rue Kerrane was the première danseuse at the Academy, and Mytho’s long-time girlfriend.  They’d been together since they were first partnered in pas de deux class.  “That doesn’t mean he’s not a better dancer than Fakhir, and nicer, and handsomer—”  _wait, is handsomer a word?  Or is it more handsome?_   “And anyway, that’s probably why he has a girlfriend and Fakhir doesn’t.  And just because I think that doesn’t mean I have feelings for him or anything, it just means—” she stopped babbling when she realized Piqué was no longer standing beside her.  
     She looked to the mirror and saw her two friends reflected back in it.  At the same height they were oddly matched, Piqué’s golden hair had a little more red and her eyes were grey not green, but the two could be sisters with their matching heart-shaped faces and turned up noses.  They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder behind her, their eyes strangely blank.  “A doomed love, a Duck destined for heartbreak,” they recited together in an oddly rehearsed chant.  
     The words struck Aria with separate blows and she wheeled around, “What did you say?”  
     But when she turned, Lillie was stretching on the ground, and Piqué was practicing her poses.  They both stared at her blankly and Aria realized there was no way they could have moved that fast.  “We didn’t say anything,” Piqué answered her.  
     “But I thought that—” Before Aria could interrogate further, the studio door opened suddenly, and Piqué pirouetted in place.  “The teacher’s here!”  
     Ms. Ziegenfuss, instructor of the junior class and pointe conditioning, was as strict a bunhead as could ever be.  Aria had never once seen a strand of her greying brown hair out of place, and she swore Ms. Ziegenfuss wore it so tight it pulled back the corners of her dark brown eyes.  Rumor had it that Ms. Ziegenfuss was once a sujet with the Paris Opera Ballet, and she certainly carried herself with the demeanor of one who’d danced with the greats.  Aria thought she always looked like she was going to a funeral with her dour expression and her long-sleeved black ballet dress and flats.  Her dark eyes swept over the room picking out the smallest imperfections with heartless precision.  Most of the time that meant Aria.  
     It didn’t help that Aria stood out in her faded blue leotard which was almost white thanks to countless washings.  The other girls could all afford new dance attire whenever they needed it, but Aria still wore the same old leotard she’d been issued when she was twelve.  The fact that it still fit three years later was telling of her figure.  She straightened up as Ms. Ziegenfuss strode imperiously into the studio, trying at once to look inconspicuous and attentive.  
     Ms. Ziegenfuss lifted her chin slightly, satisfied that she had the room’s attention.  She crossed her thin arms and raised her voice, “Alright quiet down or I’ll have you doing pliés at the barre for the entire class!”  
     “She wouldn’t!” Piqué gasped.  
     The instructor’s keen eyes picked her out of the crowd and she lifted one finely sculpted brow challengingly.  
     The whole class straightened up with military efficiency and Piqué clamped her lips together.  
     “Positions!” their teacher belted out, clapping her hands together.  
     They scattered.  For one second—and one second only—the room was chaos as students hurled themselves across the floor to be the first to the barre.  No one ever wanted to be last.  Aria managed to find a place in front of Piqué and Lillie just as Ms. Ziegenfuss began her instruction.  “Start in first position,” she announced, pacing up the line of girls as they went through their pliés, fixing little problems here and there.  “Now relevé and move your arms to second position … Remember straight legs!  And now third position arms en haut, that’s it … Don’t stick your bottom out!”  
     She droned on and Aria found her mind wandering as she stepped through battement tendues.  Her thoughts drifted back to her impossible encounter with Mytho that morning and the strange dream she’d had.   _It’s weird that they were the same right?  I dreamt Mytho was dancing on a pond, and then I saw him dancing and the floor looked like a pond with the way the light was falling.  Then he said that I was pretty, and it was perfect … or at least it was until Fakhir showed up._   She writhed again at Fakhir’s spiteful words and the way he spoke to Mytho.   _Mytho,_  she pondered longingly.   _Why did his eyes look so lonely?_ _  
_      She suddenly realized that while she was doing rond de jambes the rest of the class had moved on to a balance in arabesque.  She heard Ms. Ziegenfuss’s stentorian voice behind her, “Miss Arima,” her words carried a warning.  
     “Ma’am!” she snapped to with a start.  
     “Your mind was somewhere else wasn’t it?” the ballet mistress observed cuttingly.  “If you cannot focus then perhaps you’d rather wash every mirror in school after class?”  
     “No ma’am,” Aria spoke up quickly, realizing how many mirrors that was.  “I’m sorry!” she immediately lifted her working leg into an approximation of the pose, trying and failing not to wobble.  She could hear Ms. Ziegenfuss’s dissatisfied huff, “find your center,” she instructed, “straighten that back leg.  Now point your toes, tuck that in, keep your center and fix that arm, how many times must we go over this Miss Arima?”  
     Aria heard a few snickers as she struggled to fix her pose to Ms. Ziegenfuss’s liking.  Finally, the teacher huffed and turned away to scold another girl on her carriage.  Aria breathed a sigh of relief and they went on with their barre exercises.  
     An hour and a half later Ms. Ziegenfuss clapped her hands, calling an end to the morning’s practice.  Aria dropped out of her balance in fifth, grateful for the rest.  She followed Piqué and Lillie to the wall where they picked up their towels to wipe the sweat off their faces.  Aria ached all over.  Her feet and ankles felt battered and sore—which of course they were—and a large blister was rubbing on her right big toe thanks to the poorly fitting flats she couldn’t afford to replace.  
     The studio door opened and two dozen pairs of eyes looked up to watch their ballet director, Mr. Catt, walk in.  Like Ms. Ziegenfuss, Mr. Catt had spent many years on the professional circuit before an injury ended his career and he came to teach at Gold Crown Academy.  He still had the lithe build of a dancer, though his brown hair showed signs of greying now at the temples, and laugh lines crinkled around his eyes despite the fact that Aria had never so much as seen him smile.   
     Ms. Ziegenfuss called attention, “Ladies!  Quiet please, Mr. Catt has an announcement.”  
     Mr. Catt’s steely gaze swept the room.  “As you all are aware,” he began in his lisping voice—though heaven help the girl who chanced to giggle—“We will be presenting Giselle for this year’s Summer Showcase.  We are in need of several young ladies to fill out the corps de blanc and will be holding auditions for those roles over the next two weeks.”  Excited whispers sprang up around the room and Mr. Catt raised his bushy eyebrows.  The whispers died out almost immediately.  “As a special treat and hopefully inspiration for many of you, we will finish this morning’s practice by observing a performance by the special class.”  
_The special class._   Aria frowned.  Really it was just a contrived way to say the most gifted students at the Academy who had been shortlisted to join the Gold Crown Company upon graduation.  It always consisted of no more than five danseuses and five danseurs who trained together relentlessly.  Mytho was in the special class with Rue.  So was Fakhir.  
     Aria quickly joined her friends where they sat as the instructor turned and called the members of the special class in.  Everyone’s attention turned to the door when the five advanced danseuses entered.    They had been in practice all morning as well, but unlike the junior students, they didn’t look it.  The junior class looked exhausted, sweaty, and unkempt.  But when Aria looked up and saw Rue standing poised with her peers, they looked perfect.  Not a drop of sweat glistened on a single forehead.  Not a strand of hair was out of place.  
     The boys weren’t with them, of course.  Partnering classes were in the afternoon and Aria felt a pang of guilt, wondering how badly Mytho had hurt his foot as the girls walked into the studio and took up their places on the floor.  Rue as the premier danseuse was distinct in their midst in her red ballet dress where the others wore navy leotards a shade or two darker than the juniors’.  Her skin was pale and perfect beneath dark hair exquisitely coiffed and equally dark eyes.  Aria heard more than one gasp of awe from the junior students.   
     The special class was where every student wanted to be.  They were the best of the best.  They worked harder than anyone else, danced longer, trained even over weekends.  They received all the leading roles in the school performances, all the accolades and praise.  Aria felt her mouth drop open in wonder and she wasn’t the only one.  Envy and admiration almost poured off the other girls around her.  
     “Wow!” Piqué and Lillie murmured in unison.  
     The music began to play and they danced.  Five hands swung gracefully through the air, five feet rose up en pointe in unison.  Together they moved in a seamless pattern, spinning and whirling as if it were effortless.  Aria’s eyes widened while she watched them, clutching her knees to her chest.  “Wow, they’re so good!”  
     “Yes,” Lillie agreed in a whisper, bumping her shoulder into Aria’s playfully.  “Unlike you, Duck.”  
     “You’re not one to talk,” Piqué whispered back in her defense and Aria felt a rush of gratitude for her friend.  
     They turned their attention back to the demonstration while the music swelled, and then as one the dancers leaped across the floor.  Landing lightly, Rue stepped onto one toe and raised her leg into an arabesque, her arms and spine held perfectly as she stood posed before them.  Aria rested her chin on her knees, melancholy washing over her.   _For Mytho it’d have to be someone like Rue to make a good match,_ she realized resignedly.  She pictured again that image of her and Mytho posed together, only this time it was Rue in his arms and it looked … perfect.  Mytho would never hold her like that.  How could someone like him care about someone like her?  
_“I won’t let you do this alone!”_ _  
__“I’m not alone and you know that.”_ _  
__“They’re not enough and_ you _know it.  I’m coming too.”_ _  
__“You are not, it’s too dangerous.  You could be hurt.”_ _  
__“And so could you!  What’s the difference?”_ _  
__“The difference, little duck, is that I could never live with myself if something happened to you.”_ _  
_      A flash of light burned behind her eyes and Aria blinked against it.  She clutched her head as the weird sensation seared inside her mind.   _What was that?  I never had that conversation with Mytho._   So why could she see it?  The two of them facing each other, his expression full of concern for her as she argued to … to what?  She’d known a second ago.  The white-hot flash grew brighter and this time it was pain.  Aria gasped against it, a choked little sound bubbling up out of her throat.  
     Ms. Ziegenfuss spun on her with a glare, curving her hand into the approximation of a mouth and snapping her fingers shut.  
     “I’m sorry!” she mouthed back.  The pain was gone and so was the flash.  She couldn’t even remember what she’d been thinking about before it came.  
     Ms. Ziegnfuss glared at her a moment more before turning coldly away.  
     Piqué threw a wide-eyed expression at Aria, “Touchy,” she mouthed in response to the teacher’s temper.  
     Lillie looped her fingers through Aria’s and gave her hand a squeeze as if to reassure her.  
     Meanwhile on the floor, the special class had finished their set.  “Thank you ladies,” Mr. Catt spoke to them.  “All of you are dismissed.”  He turned to face the class, “Ms. Ziegenfuss and I will be keeping an eye out for our corps, so I hope you will all be especially attentive to your studies these next few weeks.”  His eyes swept over Aria, the incident not going unnoticed by him.  
     Aria groaned.   _Guess who won’t be in the corps._   Not that she’d had a chance anyway.  
     “That’s it for this morning,” Ms. Ziegenfuss dismissed them.  “Everyone clear out for our next class.”   
     Climbing to her feet, Aria shot a rueful look at her friends, “Thanks guys,” she said sincerely.  
     “That was close,” Piqué replied as they pushed their way out into the hall and started down the stairs toward the locker room.  “What was with you in there anyway?”  
     “I got this sudden weird headache,” she admitted.  “But it’s gone now.”  
     Lillie laughed, “You were this close to detention, Duck.  All over a little headache?”  
     “Yeah,” she mumbled.  But she wasn’t really listening to them.  She was thinking about Mytho again, and those eyes… liquid amber and so lonely...  For some reason she just couldn’t get that out of her head.   
_I should go to him._    
     The thought came out of nowhere.   
_I have to go to him now._    
     Aria shook her head as if trying to shake the strange urge out of her consciousness, but it stayed.   
_I have to make things right._   _I’m responsible for him being hurt.  I have to make it right._    
     “What?” she gasped.  
     Piqué paused in the act of pushing open the locker room door and threw a strange look her way, “What’d you say?”  
     Aria didn’t hear her.  She was moving woodenly, her motions a thing of long practice, but her thoughts were still with Mytho as she tried to puzzle out the strange impulse that had struck her.   _He wasn’t in class today,_  she reasoned.   _And that’s my fault.  I need to apologize._   Yes, that was it.  She just wanted to apologize.  She didn’t want him to think poorly of her and that meant apologizing for getting him hurt.  She’d go after classes and she’d find a way to tell him she was sorry and…  
_No.  I have to go_ now.  
     Aria’s hands froze in the very process of tying her shoes.   
     “Are you even listening to us?” Piqué asked, buttoning up her collar.  
     “Where are you Duck?” Lillie waved a hand in front of Aria’s face.   
     “What’s that?” she asked, looking up to realize she had dressed in a daze and was seated on the bench in the locker room.  
     “What’s wrong Duck?” Piqué asked, straightening her collar.  “You’re acting weird.”  
     “Weird,” Lillie agreed.  
     Aria looked up at them numbly, “You think it’s weird to suddenly show up?”  
     Piqué and Lillie exchanged equally confused looks.  “Show up?” Pique asked, wrinkling her nose and leaning toward her with some concern.  
     “Well I say suddenly,” Aria murmured mostly to herself, “But if there’s no choice but suddenly it’s not weird right?”  
     Lillie was nodding along encouragingly as if she knew exactly what Aria was talking about, but Piqué looked unconvinced.  “What’s this?  What are you talking about?”  
     Aria had already answered her own question.   _I have to go now._   She felt determination surge through her and she shot to her feet, “It doesn’t matter—”  
     “What doesn’t matter?” Piqué demanded.  
     “—I’ve got to go!”  
     Piqué threw her arms wide with exasperation, “Got to go where?”  
     But Aria still wasn’t listening.  She was already moving to the door.  The desire to see Mytho and make things right was too strong.  It couldn’t be ignored and it couldn’t be put off.   _I have to go.  I have to go_ now.  There was a strange warm throbbing against her heart and she absentmindedly closed a hand around the little red pendant that hung there.  “I’ll see you later,” she called over her shoulder.  
     “Where are you going?” Piqué shouted after her.  “We’ve got Latin grammar in ten minutes!”  
     “So cute!” Lillie squealed.  
     The strange sudden urge to see Mytho, to find him and make things right, carried Aria across the canal bridge all the way back to the school dorms.  No one took any particular notice of the student leaving campus in the middle of the morning, and the closer she got the stronger that strange urge to find Mytho became.   _I have to find him.  I have to make it right.  I have to save him._ _  
_      She froze.  “Wait, what?”  
     Aria realized with a chill that she was already standing outside the boy’s dorm.  Her hand was inches from the doorknob, about to reach out and turn it.  She didn’t even remember leaving school or walking through town, and she had no idea if Mytho was even here.  But somehow, she  _knew_.  “What am I doing?” she asked aloud, trying to reason with herself despite the chills of terror that were starting to percolate in her blood.  “I’m not supposed to go in there.  That’s the boy’s dorm.  I could get expelled!”  
     She turned around and started to walk away.   _I have to find him.  I have to save him.  I’m the only one who can._    
     Aria froze again when she realized she was facing the door and reaching for the handle once more.   _What is going on?_   Something burned against her palm and she looked down at the necklace she still held in her opposite hand.  It was glowing with a white-gold light and as she stared into it another flash of pain split her head.  
_I have to find Mytho.  I have to save him.  I’m the reason he did it.  It’s my fault.  I have to save him!_ She dropped the pendant with a jerk and it bumped against her breastbone still glowing.  Aria stumbled back several steps, shaking now, her heart racing.  She was suddenly, completely, bewilderingly terrified.   
     Someone cleared their throat behind her.  “You’re in my way.”  
     Aria spun around, mortified to find that twice in one day she’d run into Fakhir.  He stood behind her with his usual sneer in place.   
     The pendant winked out and it was easy to believe she’d imagined the whole thing.  Quite suddenly she couldn’t remember why she was standing there.  “Oh!” she gasped, and then blushed when she realized how it must look with her standing here outside the boy’s dorm.  What was she here to do again?  Something … something important.  Something to do with Mytho.  That’s right!  She had to apologize!  “Um, is Mytho—”  
     “He’s not here,” Fakhir cut her off and stepped past her toward the door.  
     “Okay, so where…”  
     “Go away!” he barked, opening the door and stepping inside.  
     Indignation shot through her and Aria put a foot in the door just as he slammed it, “Ack!” she cried out.  
     An irritated sigh sounded from the other side of the door and it opened a crack.  She could just glimpse a pair of glittering green eyes beyond.  
     “How is his injury?” Aria asked, realizing the irony of asking about Mytho’s foot just after Fakhir crushed hers.   
     “It’s not serious,” Fakhir told her tiredly.  
     “I’d like to apologize,” she announced.  
     “There’s no need,” he muttered back.  
     “Are you like this to everyone you talk to?” she snapped just as the door closed in her face.  Balling her hands up into fists she growled huffily.  “I guess that answers  _that_  question!”

***

     From his window Mytho watched the girl stomp away across the dorm’s courtyard.  She was a strange girl, but then Mytho thought everyone was strange.  There was something appealing about her although he didn’t know what it was.  She seemed upset.  Mytho couldn’t understand why.  He didn’t know why people got upset, or happy, or anything.  He never felt any of those things himself.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt anything at all.  The truth was he couldn’t  _remember_  much of anything at all, although he knew he  _should_  remember.  
     The door of the room opened and Mytho heard his name called out.  He turned as his roommate closed the door.  “Fakhir,” he greeted his friend.  Perhaps friend was the wrong word.  He’d known Fakhir for as long as he could remember.  They’d been together for years.  Almost brothers in some ways.  Fakhir watched out for him, he took care of him and told him what to do.  Mytho knew that Fakhir cared about him and wanted to protect him.  But he didn’t understand what the other boy wanted to protect him from.  He knew there must be a good reason.  Fakhir would never do anything if there wasn’t a good reason.  
     “I told you to stay in bed,” Fakhir muttered disgruntledly as he strode across the room to join Mytho at the window.  
     “Sorry,” Mytho replied emotionlessly.   
     Fakhir pulled a large muffin out of his pocket, “Breakfast,” he said, handing it to Mytho.  “Eat it.”  
     “Okay,” Mytho replied, accepting the roll obediently.   “Thank you.”  He knew the right words but didn’t feel the meaning of them.   _Sorry.  Grateful.  Hurting.  Healthy._ They were feelings to other people but to Mytho, they were just words.  He didn’t understand what they felt like.  Fakhir was the one who told him how to feel, told him when he was hot, or cold, or tired.  Or like now, told him he was hungry.  Mytho couldn’t feel any of those things himself.  
     Fakhir knew that.  He knew Mytho wasn’t like other people, that he didn’t feel anything at all.  Still, in some small way Mytho knew that Fakhir wished his friend was like everyone else.  That’s why he hesitated at the window and asked his next question.  “Is your foot hurting?”  
     Mytho looked down at his bandaged ankle.  Fakhir had taken the time to wrap it for him this morning.  He knew instinctively that it was damaged.  He could name the muscle he’d injured when he’d saved the girl.  He could tell the precise location and depth to which that muscle was torn.  And he knew the ankle wouldn’t work properly if, say, he wanted to walk on it.  But did it hurt?  Mytho couldn’t say.  He didn’t know what that was—to be in pain.  “I don’t know.”  
     Fakhir sighed in defeat.  “What a wretch you are.  You’re far too slow and utterly useless.”   
     Mytho just gazed out the window.  Maybe Fakhir was right.  Maybe he was useless.  Mytho didn’t know.  He didn’t know anything anymore.  Maybe once he did, or had he ever?  
     “As for helping others,” Fakhir said, also gazing out the window at the girl as she disappeared through the gate.  His eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “You would do best to forget such notions.”  
     “Yes,” Mytho agreed automatically.  But there was something wrong about Fakhir’s words and he knew it.  Wasn’t helping others the whole point?  He couldn’t remember.  He smoothed something in his hand, a small item.  A little evergreen leaf.  It was hers.  
     Fakhir glared at him before turning to leave, “All you need to do is listen to what I tell you,” he instructed.  
     “Yes,” Mytho agreed again, still fidgeting idly with the small green leaf.  That was the right thing to do. He should listen to Fakhir.  Fakhir would take care of him.  Fakhir would tell him what he should feel.

***

     Aria couldn’t just walk away.  She paced outside the gates back and forth, back and forth.  Every time she convinced herself she’d just find Mytho later and apologize and try to walk back to the Academy, something in her pulled her back.  “What is going on?” she breathed, bracing her back against the brick wall that wrapped around the dormitories.  She closed her eyes tightly, trying to reason out this overwhelming urge that had taken over her.  Inside her head a white-hot light was pounding away to the beat of her heart and against her chest the little red pendant she’d worn since forever almost seemed to sear against her skin.   
     It was about more than just apologizing.  She knew that now.  Some instinct had driven her here, something was telling her she  _had_  to be here.  But for what?  What the heck could she do?  She turned her head and looked through the wrought iron gates up toward Mytho’s window.  The leaded glass reflected darkly back at her.  She didn’t for one second believe Fakhir’s story that Mytho wasn’t here.  She could almost  _feel_ him, as if she could somehow psychically sense his presence.  Fakhir was up there with him by now.  She wondered what they were saying, if Fakhir had even told Mytho that she was there.   
     If Aria was being entirely honest with herself she’d admit that Fakhir intimidated her.  It wasn’t because he was a bully.  In fact other than that one incident seven years ago, he’d never taken any notice of her at all.  Until this morning she’d never even seen him speak unkindly to anyone.  Until this morning she’d hardly seen him speak to anyone.  But just as there was something in Mytho’s eyes, there was something in Fakhir’s.  Only it wasn’t loneliness it was  _danger._ _  
_      Aria gasped.   _Is that why I’m here?_  she wondered.  She turned around and crept up to the gate, peering through the wrought iron bars toward the boy’s dorm.  She was practically out of sight where she stood, but she still maintained care to crouch down.  “Would Fakhir really hurt Mytho?”  
     She didn’t know.  She didn’t know anything.  She slumped against the wall in defeat.  Staring up at the sky Aria fought the urge to cry out of her own frustration.   _He looked so lonely this morning, and the way he held me like he didn’t want to let me go … those eyes so full of pain, there’s got to be a reason for it right?_ _  
_      “Not that I can do anything about it but if only there were some way I could help him…” she trailed off.  But help him what?  Or did it matter?  “If I were able to do something—anything,” she paused, blue eyes held wide and luminous with unshed tears, “I’d give my life for that.”  
     As if her words were the keystone of some cosmic plot, the world seemed to shift.  In her head and all around Aria could hear the ticking of a great clock.  A fragment of movement caught her eye and she looked out at the courtyard.  There!  There was something there, right?  She squinted.  The day which had been so bright this morning had grown suddenly overcast.  A wall of mist rose from the canal and spilled over the small courtyard, but Aria could see something through it.  A shadow stood near the fountain.  Was it Fakhir?  No.  Whoever this person was they were far too small to be the svelte danseur.  
     Suddenly heedless, Aria darted forward.  Hot-white light pounded against the walls of her mind and she skidded to a stop by the fountain.  Swirls of mist closed around her, the air seemed dark and heavy, the sun obscured by a thick layer of clouds.   _They’re gone,_  she realized, gazing all around.   _But who was it?_ _  
_      A ghosting laugh echoed out of the abyss and Aria spun around only to come face to face with … herself?  She blinked and the image—whatever it was—was gone.   _But it was me, wasn’t it?_   Not the her that she was now, but the girl she’d been.  Her head ached and flashes of light burst like stars across her field of vision.  
     Out of the mist came a suddenly familiar sound—feet crunching on a graveled walk—and Aria looked up just in time to see Fakhir take form in the fog.  Already unsettled with apprehension quivering her knees, the sight of the young man undid what little courage she had, and with a squeak she dove behind a shrub where she knelt quaking until long after the boy had left the courtyard.   
     The mist slowly burned away, and Aria eventually climbed to her feet, her heart racing and nervous energy coursing through her limbs.   _What is going on?_   Above her the oriel window opened and an all-too familiar white-haired head leaned out.  “Mytho!” she gasped.   
     A small fluttering shape caught her eye and she saw Canary Mom’s nest, just a couple meters from the open window.  A pair of chicks were perched on the edge of that nest and she remembered her teasing words to the little canary this morning  _“Your chicks are getting ready to fly soon, aren’t they?”_ _  
_      Something white and hot was bleeding into Aria’s mind and it blotted out the image of the chicks in their nest, and Mytho leaning out his window.   _I have to make things right.  I have to save him._   A heavy pressure settled on her chest, a dull throbbing that started just over her heart and spread outward.   _The voice, the dream, the Prince…  It all means something, doesn’t it?_ _  
_      Something was growing in her mind.  The white light was taking form, growing stronger.  Her hesitation was gone now, replaced by a quiet, terrible resolve.  The white light in her head broke and bled through her.   _I_ have _to save him!_    
     Somewhere she heard a door open and fall shut.  
     “Little duck,” a strangely familiar voice spoke so clearly, she would have sworn someone was standing just beside her.  
     She started and turned her head, “What?” But there was no one there, only the swirling mist.  The sound of rushing water made her turn again and she saw the fountain before her.  Was it flowing a moment ago?  She couldn’t remember.  Had any of the fountains ever flowed?  And then as if the sight and sound of that flowing water awakened something inside of her, a window opened in her mind and a flood of images burst loose.   _The rain, a pond, water dripping off a hat onto my face…_ _  
_      Fire burned through her head and it all came rushing back.  Her hands flew to her collar and she ripped her shirt open, staring down at the smooth white skin over her heart, but no, there was no wound there nor even the memory of a scar.  “Mytho!” she gasped, and in her head she could hear her own anguished voice calling his name.  
_“Mytho!”_ _  
__“Checkmate.”_ _  
__“NO!”_ _  
_      Aria clutched at her head desperately.  The white light pounded against the walls of her mind.  
_“What have you done…?”_ _  
__“I’m sorry…”_ _  
__“Shh…”_ _  
_      It was all too much, too fast, flashes of images and she couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t.  
_“…stay with me…”_ _  
__“I’m right here…”_ _  
_      The images blurred into a single, solid certainty.   _I have to make it right.  I have to save him._   And suddenly she knew why.  Aria’s eyes flew open and she stared up at the window where he stood.  “Mytho!” she cried out, running across the courtyard.  She had to get to him.  She had to save him while she still remembered!  
     In that very instant a dark shape dove suddenly out of the sky, careening toward Mytho and the lone little yellow chick still sitting in the nest.  “No!” Aria cried as Mytho, acting as quickly as he had in the dance studio, dove between the crow and the canary chick.  He overbalanced and fell from the window four stories up.  “Mytho!” she screamed even as a white-hot power built inside of her and came flooding out with the force of a storm-filled river.   
     She leapt, clearing the hedge that fronted the small lawn in front of the boy’s dorm and at her will the nearby canal flowed over.  A crystal wave came crashing toward the dorm and the falling Prince.   _I have to save him!_     
     Aria struck an invisible wall mid-leap and it seemed to shatter.  The white light in her head exploded into a thousand burning prisms that scorched behind her eyes.   
     Time stopped.  
     The wind was still, leaves and blossoms hanging frozen in the air.  Overhead the clouds were motionless, the birds in the sky seemed to be pinned in place, and even Mytho in midair did not fall.  Everything had come to a halt.  Everything but Aria.  
     And suddenly she wasn’t a girl leaping over a hedge in the courtyard.  She was a duck, small and fluffy, paddling on a still pond looking up at a strange silhouette.  
_“Do you care for him, little duck?”_  the looming figure, so familiar and so strange, asked as he looked down at her.  
     “Quack?”  
_“Do you want to be of help to the poor Prince?”_  he asked.  
     “Quack.”  
     He leaned down and she could see the shadows cast across his aging face _, “Are you saying that_ you’re _going to tell me this story?”_ _  
_      “Quack!”  
_“Very well…”_  and a pair of white-gloved hands came down around her, hanging a glowing pendant around her feathered neck.  
     Shattered time splintered all around her and Aria could hear that voice again, speaking in her ears and in her mind.   _“Now do you remember who you are?”_ it asked.  
     “I am…” she pushed against the powers holding her, trying to recollect the scattered shards of the memory that was so clear only seconds ago.  “I am…”   
     A white-hot flash burned behind her eyes and she saw the Prince in his doublet … the wide arching doors of a great hall.  
_“Are you ready?”_  he asked.  
_“Yes_ ,” she murmured, and the doors opened…  
     The white-gold light at her throat burned brighter.  “Yes, I do!” she cried as the pain intensified, blooming brilliantly.  “I am—” she closed her eyes against that pain, trying to focus through the burning white light.  “I am—” The image of the Prince burned away and the pain in her head swelled and burst, the light flashing at her throat went from white to red and her eyes flew open.  “I am Princess Tutu!”  
     And in that moment she changed.   
     She no longer wore her school uniform.  She was no longer short and skinny and ugly.  Quite suddenly she was no longer Aria Arima.   
     She was tall and willowy and graceful, filled with a power she only had to dance to control.  She stepped onto the pointe of one perfect pink toe shoe, her gown of gossamer white glowing around her.  The plain little red jewel she always wore was plain no more, but an elaborate gold collar on which hung a heavy winged pendant of glowing rubies.   _I will save the Prince!_    
     Time moved again and Mytho fell while she landed on the crest of the wave she had summoned.  She could feel her power like a living thing inside and all around her—the power to control the flowing and the formless, the growing and the ever-changing.  She landed on one foot, whipping into a furious series of pirouettes.  At that signal the power inside of her was released.  The rose vines that grew at the front of the dorm suddenly spread, blooming with thousands of blossoms that opened and shed a flood of petals.  A tidal torrent of roses cascaded forward on that crystal wave and Princess Tutu danced impossibly atop it.   _This_  was her power.   _This_  was her purpose!  And for the first time in her life it was gloriously  _right!_ _  
_      When Mytho fell he didn’t strike the hard ground.  Instead he sank into that crystal wave and the deep soft bed of fragrant petals that it carried.  Princess Tutu stepped forward en pointe, unconsciously dancing atop the water even as she bent forward and grasped the Prince’s hand, lifting him out of the watery bed of roses.  Not a single drop clung to his clothes or hair.  His eyes shown as she pulled him to his feet, and though he did not smile, she felt her heart warm just the same.  He held his free hand toward her and opened it.  On his palm sat the canary chick unharmed.  It looked up at her, shook its little yellow head, then whistled and spread tiny wings to take to the air.   
     Princess Tutu smiled.  She wasn’t standing on rose petals and water anymore.  The magic inside her unwound and—having served its purpose—faded.  But the Prince was safe.  She’d done it!  “Everything is alright now, Mytho,” she assured him.  
     “How do you know my name?” he asked, “And you, who are you?”  
     “I am—” she broke off.  Her thoughts skittered before her.  Who was she?  “I am … uh …” the image of a duck floating on a pond, downy feathers ruffled against the cold.   _I’m a duck!  Just a duck!  I’m not a girl, I’m not Princess Tutu.  The dream wasn’t a dream!_   “Quack!”  
     She slapped a hand over her mouth, horrified at the very unladylike squawk that had just slipped out.  Mytho was staring at her with a quiet confusion in his eyes.   
     Tutu released his hand, backing away in utter mortification.  And then something inside of her shattered and she fled out of the courtyard and off of the street.  An icy hot pain seared all through her body so intense it drove her to her knees.  She fell spinning through a haze of confusion, her pendant flying over her head off her neck as she collapsed, and the world disappeared into darkness.

***

     From the shadows of another world, a gloating spirit glared at the little girl who’d come so close to ruining all his plans so early in the plot.  “That was too close,” he muttered disgruntledly.  If he didn’t need her so much, he had half a mind to write her out of the story altogether!  How dare she go and start  _remembering_  things she had no right to know.  
     Pacing back and forth irritably, the spirit grumbled about the inconsistencies of teenage girls and waterfowl.  “To me!” he commanded gruffly.  
     A female figure obediently appeared, also staring through the sands of time at the hapless girl.  “You underestimated her,” the creature summed up succinctly.  “She was too powerful to be manipulated.”  
     Grinding insubstantial teeth together, the spirit waved a hand and the image of the girl disappeared.  “Not for much longer,” he spat by way of reply.  He thrust a hand toward the creature, “Give it to me!”  
     The woman held out a shining red pendant that only a moment ago hung around the neck of the useless little duck.  She cocked her head at it as it dangled, sparkling from her outstretched fingers.  “How long do you think you can control her with this?”  
     “It just needs some fine tuning,” the spirit replied, taking the pendant and working it over with one hand.  “That little duck won’t get away from me like that again.”  
     “You are certain you can spare the power?”  
     “Of course I am!” he snapped, even though he knew that expending any more of his precious energy on that little duck would lessen his already limited days.  “She’s worth it,” he said as if to remind himself that all this effort wasn’t wasted. “You saw what she did.  The water has begun to flow, and time once more has begun to pass.”  
     “Even you could not accomplish that in fifteen years of trying,” she responded clinically.  
     If spirits could feel chills, he did.  Disgruntled, he thrust a hand out, pointing to the grandfather clock that hung in the shadows nearby.  “Collect her things,” he commanded.   
     The woman bowed and disappeared.  
     Turning back to the sands of time, the spirit flicked his wrist and the image of a small white duck lying on the ground appeared.  He grinned down at it.  “Time for me to set this tale on the right path,” he chortled, opening the doors of the great grandfather clock and stepping through.  “Tell me a story, little duck.”


	3. Das Hässliche Entlein

**_The Ugly Duckling_ **

 

     Aria came slowly to consciousness, light leaking in blearily through her painfully slit eyes.  Her first awareness was the splitting ache in her head.  She felt like all her bones had been lit on fire and then frozen.  For a while she lay on the ground looking up until the world came into focus, trying to remember where she was and how she got there.  She seemed to recall being someone else and dancing.  Yes, she was dancing, wasn’t she?  Dancing with Mytho.   _Was that a dream?_ _  
_      Her eyes focused on the world around her and she saw leaves and branches overhead.   _Where am I?_   She didn’t recognize her surroundings.  Nameless trees and shrubs rose around her.   _What am I doing here?_   Lifting one hand to clutch her aching head, Aria looked up and saw not fingers but downy feathers.  “Quack!” she uttered in shock.  
     The sound she made scared her even more than the sight of her hand as nothing more than feathers.  She sat bolt upright in terror at the squawk that had just come impossibly from her throat.  But no.  She didn’t sit up.  Her body wouldn’t work like that.  Fluffy wings beat against the ground and she flipped over, repositioning her weight while webbed feet scrambled for purchase on the mossy forest floor.  “Quack!” she squawked again in terror.   _What’s going on!?_ _  
_      Arms that were wings flapped flightlessly at her sides and she ran as fast as her gangly grey legs could carry her. The tall grass closed around her, over her head, and she barreled through it heedless of any danger as her tiny heart pounded against tiny ribs.  Finally the grass parted and she was standing on the edge of a serene pool, the water below as clear and smooth as the surface of a mirror.  And just like in a mirror her own face looked back at her—two bright blue eyes and a thin black bill set in a face of fluffy white down.  The face of a duck.  
     “Quack,” she moaned mournfully.   _I_ _am_ _just a duck, but I thought I was a girl._   She looked up, and through the trees she could glimpse the side of a distant house. _When I saved Mytho was that a dream?_ “Quack!”   _Could this be a dream right now?_ _  
_      A terrible cackling filled her ears and the water of the pool went dreadfully dark.   _“If you must, know neither is a dream, little duck,”_  a strange voice gloated.  And then a face, an awfully familiar face, filled the pool.  
     Screeching in surprise the duck fell back from the shore as that horrible face leered up at her from the depths of the water.  She turned to run away, but froze as a shadowy figure loomed up before her.  She screeched again,  _“Who are you?”_ she managed to ask in the language of birds, flapping her wings in her fright.  
     The figure stepped out of the woods, dark and terrible.  She recognized him.  He was the crazy old monster-man she’d seen in her dream.  It was his voice she’d heard in her mind just before … just before she turned into Princess Tutu.   _Was that real?_ _  
_      “You may address me as Drosselmeyer,” the awful old man leered down.  He had a long wild beard, and wide crazed eyes.  Loose skin dropped from a skull-like face.  Over his shoulders was a crimson great cape sewn over in a pattern of green.  Atop his head was a wide-brimmed hat with seven multicolored plumes rising from it that only added to the terror of his appearance.  “Do you still want to save the poor Prince who lost his heart?” he asked with a gloating chuckle.  
     Paralyzed in fright, it took the little duck a moment to register the question.   _“The person I want to save is Mytho,”_  she expressed.  And though she spoke in the language of birds, nevertheless the old man understood.  
     He grinned, his teeth large and white making his face look more like a skull than ever.  In his hands he lifted an old-fashioned book, its cover held closed by a pair of leather straps.  A large stylish  **D**  was printed on its face.  “Ah yes, your Mytho.  But you see that isn’t who he really is.  The boy you know as Mytho is actually a Prince.”  
_“A Prince?”_ _  
_      “Indeed,” the old man cackled.  “The Prince was a whole-hearted hero who fought the demonic Raven.  Well, he was when they were still inside the story.”  
     Her little eyes went wide.   _“Inside the story?”_   She blinked, and when she looked again the book was open and the old man held a quill, scrawling something upon its pages.  The image was familiar—something she’d seen before—but she couldn’t quite recall where.  After all, what does a duck know of the ways of Man?  
     “Yes!” the old man exclaimed delightedly.  “He came out of the story I wrote and ended up losing his heart to seal the Raven away.  Shattered to pieces his lost heart now wanders as a handful of shards and Princess Tutu is the only one who can restore it.”  
     She gasped in shock _.  “Princess Tutu?”_   So it  _was_  real!  Or was it?  He said it was a story and stories can’t be real, can they?   _Can_  they?  
     “If you have the necessary resolve,” the crazy old man grinned at her, ignorant of her tumbling thoughts, “I’ll turn you into a girl once more.”  
     Her little duck eyes went wide in her little duck face.  “ _A girl!”_   Was that possible?  Or was it too good to be true? _“I’ll really get to see Mytho again?”_ _  
_      He waggled a finger at her admonishingly, “If you have the resolve that is.”  
     She jumped up and down on webbed feet, flapping her wings _.  “I do, I do!”_   She didn’t care what it took or what the cost was.  “ _If I could be a girl again and stay by Mytho’s side maybe someday … someday I might be able to put a smile back on his face.”_   An image rose in her mind of the Prince’s smile and the thought made her heart ache.  “ _If that’s the one thing I can do then there’s nothing more that I could wish for.”_  
     “Congratulations!” the old man cackled, “Dream and your wish is granted.  That’s the great thing about stories.  The duck will become a girl and the girl will become Princess Tutu.”   
     He waved his hand with a flourish and the book wavered and transformed into a familiar ruby pendant.  Leaning forward, he hung the small chain—sized perfectly for a duck—around her throat.  As he did, a red-hot power shot through her.  Her skin crawled as if a thousand mites were burrowing into her downy feathers, and then the world around her seemed to grow smaller.  
     “Stories are such wonderful creatures!” the man declared, retreating into the fog.  “But remember this,” he called back, “if you say or do anything resembling a duck…”  
     Aria glanced down at herself, now again in human form, and the shock of the sight caused her to cry out, “Quack!” Quite suddenly a hot pain shot through her and she fell—no—shrank!  
     An eerie chuckle cackled out of the fog, “You just remember that!”  
     The old man’s laugh was the last thing she heard before she passed out. 

 

     When she came to again a bell was ringing somewhere in town.  She lay there counting the chimes.  Seven, seven chimes meant seven in the morning or seven at night.  She opened her eyes slowly, testing the ache in her head.  Soft light shown down through a roof of leaves arched over her head.   _Seven in the morning then,_  she decided.   _But what day?  And where am I?_   Carefully she stood up and looked around.   _This is Goldkrone Towne_ , she thought as if trying to reassure herself.   _And I’m_ — she held her hand up in front of her face.  
     Feathers.  Soft downy feathers.  
     “Quack!”  
_A duck?!  
     _ It came back to her blearily:  the dream, the old man, the pendant.  She looked down and saw a bright red jewel the size of a pebble hanging around her neck on a delicate chain.   _It’s all real then?_   Dismayed to her feathery soul, she cast helplessly around.  _B _ut how am I a duck, and how do I change back!?_  
_      She hurried to the edge of the small pond and stopped at the precipice, peering down into the waters and hoping it was all just some weird head-injury-induced hallucination.  But no, looking down at her reflection her worst fears were confirmed.  She really was a duck.  And wouldn’t you know?  She actually was an ugly duck at that, all half-grown and colorless without even proper flight feathers on her downy wings.  She huffed and plopped down miserably, shaking up a little cloud of dust all around. _So what now?  Was it all a dream?_   But that couldn’t be right?  Looking down at the pendant again she tried to remember what the old man had said.   _Mytho’s a prince, and I have to save him, but how can I do that if I’m a duck?  The pendant is supposed to make me a girl, but why didn’t it?_   She gazed around feeling suddenly very alone.   _Maybe it really was all a dream,_  she sighed.  But why should ducks dream of such things at all?  Except, of course, that she was certainly a strange little duck.     
     Resigned to her fate, the little duck jumped into the water.  It was cold and clear and calming, and in some way it helped to soothe her injured spirit.  After all, what business has a duck to dream of being a girl when she was just a duck?  She sighed again and ruffled her downy feathers, swimming idly toward the center of the pond.   _This really is a serene life,_  the little duck decided.   _So what if it isn’t what I wanted, it isn’t so bad.  It’s actually kind of calming out here in the peace and quiet and—_ _  
_      “Quack!” she cried in alarm.  A tingling sensation shot through her bones and between one breath and the next she was sitting on top of the water and then trapped underneath it.  
     It took Aria a moment to realize that was because she wasn’t a duck.  She was lying underwater with her feet in the air.  She sat up and water flowed down her back and out of her hair in a dozen rivulets.  “Qua—” she started to squawk, and the haunting words of the crazy old man echoed back to her.   _“If you do or say anything resembling a duck…”_ _  
_      Aria clapped her hands over her mouth before she could finish making the sound.  She looked down and saw the red pendant hanging around her neck.  Cautiously she lifted it in one hand.  She’d never taken much notice of the ornament before.  Now it sat in her palm, about the size of a silver reichsmark, glittering in the morning light.  The jewel was a beautiful red that glowed when the sun struck it, darker than a ruby but not quite the heartblood color of a garnet.  
     “It wasn’t a dream,” she murmured in awe.  “But how is that even possible…”  
     Music wafted toward her, the tinny and repetitive sound of a barrel organ playing a rendition Aria recognized from Coppélia.  She looked up in surprise and saw someone approaching her through the woods.  “Is it him again?” she wondered aloud.  
     As the figure drew closer Aria saw it wasn’t the crazy old man, but a pale woman with paler hair tinged green by the light coming through the leaves overhead.  Her looks were striking, wide violet eyes in a pale heart-shaped face made paler by the white powder she wore.  Around her neck was a black choker, and over her shoulders hung two straps from which hung the small hand organ that was the source of the music.  
     That’s all Aria had time to take note of before the woman stopped at the edge of the pool, unperturbed by the sight of a girl sitting naked in pond muck up to her waist.   
     “May those who accept their fate be granted happiness,” the organ grinder said by way of greeting.  “May those who defy it be granted glory.”  
     Aria’s blue eyes went wide.  “Wh-who are you?”  
     The woman’s small mouth moved into a smile.  “I am Edel.  You are Duck.”  She had a soft, lilting way of talking as if she were singing on a whisper.  
     “You know about me?” Aria uttered in shock.  
     “Even as a girl, you still have some duck-like qualities about you, don’t you?” she asked, softly amused.  
     “What?” Aria blinked.  That didn’t exactly sound like a compliment.  
     “The way you look,” Edel explained.  
     “The way I look?” Aria repeated blankly.  
     “Think of it as having had all your feathers plucked out.”  
     For the first time Aria looked down and realized she wasn’t wearing any clothes.   _Oh crap!_   She cried out and ducked down so the water covered her all the way up to her nose.  Her hair fanned out on the water’s surface made darker for being wet, a veil of red like fresh blood drifting around her.  
     Edel just smiled and held out a rumpled school uniform that had been neatly folded.  “These are for you.”  Placing the clothes on the shore she politely turned her back.  
     Aria stared at her for a moment, ensuring the woman was resolved to stay politely turned, before she climbed out of the pond.  She dressed quickly, still dripping wet and smelling slightly of pond water and duck as she pulled on her skirt and blouse.  “So… you know about what’s going on?” Aria asked, her cold fingers fumbling at the buttons on her shirt.  
     The organ grinder peered over her shoulder stoically.  “I do.”  
     “But how?”  Aria demanded, pulling her sodden hair out of her collar, “I mean, I’m a duck and I’m also a girl?” Aria yanked on her socks.  “And Mytho is a student at Gold Crown Academy but he’s also a Prince, and that creepy old man said…”  
     Edel started to walk back the way she’d come.  
     “Wait!” Aria cried, stomping into her shoes and pulling on her jacket inside out as she ran to catch up.  Though Edel moved with a strange wooden step, Aria was still breathless by the time she’d reached Mitgefühl Street on the Wall and saw Edel turn the corner by the canal.  She hurried to catch up to the organ grinder.  “So wait,” Aria pressed, “if I’m a duck as in the bird—” and at this point she had no reason to believe she’d imagined  _that_ —“then since when was the girl me the me that I am, or the me that I remember being?  I mean the me that was yesterday, and the day before that, and—” she cut herself off when she realized she was babbling.  She took a breath and tried again.  “I remember doing things and people remember me being a girl, but how is that possible if I’m really a duck?”  
     Edel’s eyes were fixed forward, her pale painted face grave.  “A story’s birth is a sudden event, the start a happy accident.  The end the fate for which it’s meant.  A story that never ends is a cruel thing.”  
     Aria frowned, “That didn’t really answer my question, Miss Edel.”  
     Her companion stopped walking and looked down, her lips turning up in a small smile.  “Let us meet again.”  
     Aria smiled back automatically.  “I’d like that.”  
     At once Edel turned and walked away over a low bridge.  
     “Hey, wait!” Aria called after her, running to catch her.  “I have more questions!”  But when she crossed the bridge and turned the corner along the town wall to follow the strange woman, Aria realized she’d disappeared.  She looked around in wonder, but the street was empty.  Aria turned a circle scanning the lane in both directions,  _where could she have gone?_  But there was no sign of the strange Edel at all.   
     Without any other recourse, Aria turned and started back over the bridge with the events of the morning churning like milk froth in her mind.  Almost automatically, she made her way back to the Academy, and the sun was well up by the time she walked out onto the quad.  She’d lost so much time between being Princess Tutu and a duck that she wasn’t even certain what day it was anymore.  At the very least she knew she’d missed at least a day’s worth of classes, and two practices, and if she didn’t hurry she’d be late for morning practice as well.  If she was lucky and it was Thursday that meant she’d only missed Latin, history, and math and maybe she wouldn’t have detention, and  _is that really something I should worry about after I just found out I’m a girl who’s a duck and also Princess Tutu and Mytho’s somehow a Prince, and some creepy guy in the woods gave me a necklace and—_ _  
_      Her thoughts stuttered to a stop.  She was halfway across the quad when she looked up and saw Mytho sitting at the crown of a grassy hill.  “The Prince!” she gasped, and froze in place.  Which was a ridiculous reaction considering he hadn’t seen her.  Yet an image flashed in her mind—a face in the darkness—a voice,  _“What are you doing out here, little duck?”_   She blinked and the image and the voice were gone and she was left staring up the hill like a dolt.  A couple girls walking by spied her and giggled, whispering something to each other.  
     Aria ducked behind a sculpted metal angel statue, her back pressed right up against the figure’s flowing skirt.  For some strange reason her heart was pounding in her chest.   _What was that?_   She wondered, trying to pull her scrambled thoughts together.  It took a few seconds for her to realize the absurdity of hiding.  It’s not like Mytho would recognize her as Princess Tutu, and other than their chance encounter yesterday, he really had no idea who she was.  And really, hiding behind this statue she looked more like a crazed stalker than anything else, which is probably why everyone was laughing at her.  She peered out around the angel’s flowing skirt and gazed up the hill.  He hadn’t seen her.  He was sitting on the edge of the walk in front of Noverre Hall, his long legs stretched out before him over the grass, and his eyes fixed on the book in his hands.   
     For a long minute Aria stood there staring at him.   _I turned into Princess Tutu and saved Mytho, right?_   That  _had_  happened, hadn’t it?  The bird, the window, him falling and she … she danced and saved him.  And something … something else had happened.  A white flash of pain like a warning blazed in her head.   _I wonder if he remembers?_ _  
_      “Of course, even if he did he wouldn’t know it was me,” she reminded herself.  She gazed down at her clothes and ran a hand through the carroty tangled mass of her hair, already drying and curling around her shoulders.  Resignedly, she realized she looked even more rumpled and unkempt than usual.  Maybe they weren’t laughing at her because she was staring at Mytho.  Maybe they were laughing because she looked like a drowned rat?  Well, a drowned bird, at least.  Absentmindedly she pulled a feather out of her collar and tossed it to the ground.   
     Aria turned away, removing her jacket and turning it right side out before shrugging it back on.  She fumbled with her hair, finger-combing it to the best of her ability and knotting it back into a messy braid.  It would be nice to tell him she was Princess Tutu.  What would he think of her then?  Would he think she’s insane?   _Who says I’m not?_ _  
_      A strange realization struck her.  “What if he found out I was a duck like the actual bird?”  She pictured his reaction.  Shock, horror, shunning?  Revulsion?  Disgust?  Her thoughts turned to the school’s culinary club.  “Maybe he likes to eat duck?” She shuddered at that last thought.   _Best I keep some things to myself._ _  
_      She looked up the hill again and recalled the old man’s words about the Prince who lost his heart.  She tried to imagine what it was like to live without a heart, without feeling.  She suppressed a shudder.  The thought was just so… horrible.   _No wonder his eyes look so lonely._ _  
_      Her heart twisted, and Aria chewed her thumbnail uncertainly.  She badly wanted to go talk to him but what could she possibly say?  He was a senior, in the special class, and she was just a junior student.  He was handsome and popular and she—Aria looked down at herself.  She looked exactly like someone who’d spent the night in the woods and took a bath in pond water.  
     But she could ask him about his foot.  How long ago had he injured it?  Without really knowing what day it was Aria couldn’t say.  Was it better?   _I should ask, and while I’m at it I should apologize.  Maybe we could be friends.  Maybe with a friend nicer than Fakhir, Mytho wouldn’t be so lonely.  Of course, he’s got Rue, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want to be my friend and—_ _  
_      Aria didn’t realize that while she was lost in thought she’d climbed the hill until she was suddenly standing beside him.  He looked up at her as her shadow fell over his book.   _Crap!  What do I say now?_ Her eyes dropped to the ground and she felt herself blushing.   _His ankle!  Right, I haven’t apologized for getting him hurt, I—_ “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, still staring at the ground.  
     He closed the book, regarding her seriously.  “What?”  
     Her blush deepened, and she twisted her hands together behind her back.  “Y-your leg,” she stammered.  “Is your leg still hurting you?”  
     He studied her silently for a moment.  “Not really.”  
     “Oh, that’s good.”  She responded lamely.   _And that’s the limit of my conversational ability._   Aria bit her lip.  Mytho was still staring at her expectantly.  There was a part of her that wanted to just walk away, and another part that wanted to sit down beside him and talk.  Unfortunately, the part that wanted to sit was a lot more determined and Aria found herself plopping down on the grass a few feet away from him as her heart thumped nervously in her chest.  “So, uh, you’re reading a book?”   _Of course he is dunderhead!_   She mentally kicked herself.  “So you like books?” _Oh yeah, that doesn’t sound snobbish…_ she fumbled fretfully “Is the book interesting?”  _Of course it is, he wouldn’t read it if it wasn’t!_ _  
_Shut up!__ she ordered her own internal monologue.  
     “Not really,” Mytho answered softly.  
     Aria’s thoughts were abruptly silenced, “What?”  
     “I don’t really know if I particularly like or dislike books.”  
     She found herself staring into his eyes again.  Liquid amber turned into waves of gold in the morning light and she felt a peculiar little twist inside herself,  _he looks so lost… I wonder if—_ _  
_      “Good day Mytho,” a girl’s voice shattered the moment.  
     “Oh,” Aria started visibly, blushing at being caught boldly talking to a senior student, and of all the students Mytho!  She looked up quickly, ready to apologize for her infraction.  “Hi Ru—” she cut herself off suddenly because the girl standing beside Mytho wasn’t the elegant, willowy ballerina, despite the intimacy with which she’d spoken Mytho’s name.  “Qua—” Aria blushed and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth to cut off the squawk.  “Annette?” she choked out instead.  
     Annette was Aria’s age, a couple inches taller perhaps, but with a rounder … _fuller_ … figure that made her look closer to eighteen.  The reason she’d nearly made Aria squawk was because she had her skirt rolled up at the waist to show off an unseemly amount of knee, and her blouse was two sizes too small with the buttons straining against their contents—the ones that were actually buttoned, that is!  She was wearing makeup too, dark heavy makeup that made her look like a pinup model.  Aria found herself gaping at the girl.  But Annette didn’t notice, she was staring at Mytho with a predatory look in her eyes.  Aria had seen that exact look on housecats who went into the trees to hunt songbirds.   
     “May I take a seat next to you?” Annette asked of Mytho, her face posed in a pretty pout.  
     “Sure,” he shrugged indifferently.  
     Annette plopped down beside him, her skirt riding up even further as she threw a coquettish look in Mytho’s direction.  Aria couldn’t help but notice the girl was sitting so close that her bare leg and her shoulder brushed up against him.  “What exactly are your thoughts on Miss Rue?” she inquired suggestively.  
     Aria’s face turned an even brighter shade of red.   _Am I really hearing this??_ _  
_      “I don’t know,” Mytho murmured.  
     Her heavily made-up eyes went wide.  “You do love her, don’t you?”  
     He shrugged again.  “Not really.”  
     Aria gaped.   _What!?_   No that couldn’t be right.  Mytho loved Rue.  He’d loved her since the day their eyes first met over the dance floor.  Aria had been there, standing right by Rue when he—  
     A flash of light exploded in her head and Aria’s hands flew to her temples.  For one brief instant it felt like her mind might explode.  And then as quickly as it came it was gone.  She looked up, shaking her head in surprise.  What had she been thinking?  
     To her right Annette was pressed right up against Mytho smiling at him like the Cheshire cat.  “Then might I ask you to be with me instead?” she stroked his sleeve with the back of one finger, “Would you be averse to it?”  
     Mytho gazed at her impassively.  “Not really.”  
     Her smile turned into a grin “Mytho…” she purred before she locked an arm around his neck and—  
     Aria’s eyes snapped shut and she quickly jumped to her feet, face aflame.  “Excuse me,” she mumbled, marching determinedly away and trying to wipe the image of Annette’s face plastered against Mytho’s out of her head.   _I did not see what I just saw.  I did not see what I just saw.  I did not see what I just saw._ _  
_      Stomach twisting uncomfortably, Aria fled toward the doors of Noverre Hall where a gaggle of girls was gathered chatting animatedly.  The door opened, and a lissome figure stepped out and started up the path toward Aria.    
     She froze in her tracks.   
     It was Rue.  
     “Qua—”  _Curses!_   Why did she keep doing that?  
     Hands still clamped firmly over her mouth lest she slip, Aria stared at the approaching Rue, and then glanced back at Annette and Mytho who were—  
     Her eyes flew shut again.   _Let’s just say they’re in a compromising position._   Turning back toward Rue, Aria’s hands fell to her sides.  The ballerina hadn’t noticed anything yet, primarily because Aria was standing in the way.  She was walking slowly, her eyes demurely downcast, hands folded over a stack of school books.  For one wicked second Aria considered stepping aside and letting hell happen.  And then just as she’d seen Rue in her place in Mytho’s arms in her daydream, she saw herself in Rue’s place now.  
     Swallowing back the poison, Aria stepped forward into Rue’s path.  “Hey Rue!” she exclaimed brightly, drawing the girl’s attention to herself.  Rue stopped and looked at her in surprise at which point Aria realized that was the beginning and end of her plan.  “Oh, um, hey look over there is that a hot air balloon?”  She pointed to a distant cloud and Rue actually started to turn and stare when Annette’s voice broke in.  
     “Well if it isn’t Miss Rue.”  
     Aria cringed, and Rue looked up to see Annette standing beside Mytho in the middle of the walkway.  She had her arm tucked through his while she pressed right up against him.  Mytho, for his part, looked unmoved.  
     Annette smiled wickedly, “Please allow me the pleasure of informing you Mytho is going to accompany _me_ now.”  
     Rue’s face went still.  “What?”  
     Annette’s smile widened, “It seems quite clear who the winner is here.”  She turned away, pulling Mytho with her.  “Excuse us.”  
     In the sudden silence Aria swallowed hard and cast a sidelong look at Rue.  The ballerina’s face was entirely white, her dark eyes seemed to be on fire.  It was about as awful as Aria had imagined it, and she stepped in quickly to assure her.  “No, no, don’t listen to her.  I’m pretty sure it’s not true.  That wasn’t for real so it’s—”  
     “It doesn’t bother me,” Rue cut in quietly.   
     Aria gawked at her.  “What?”  
     “Thank you though,” Rue smiled slightly, “You’re so sweet.”   
     “Um, you’re welcome?”  
     Rue frowned at her then, “You know your shirt is buttoned crooked,” she murmured.  And with that Rue turned around and started back the way she’d come, leaving Aria staring after her, aghast at what had just happened.


	4. Die Prinzessin und Das Herz des Prinz

**_The Princess and the Heart of the Prince_ **

     Gossip is the common currency of Gold Crown Academy.  Fakhir supposed that was the inevitable result when you threw a handful of adolescents together who don’t have to work for their own survival.  He detested gossip and refused to participate in it.  What did he care who was dating whom this week and which danseuse had a breakdown in the locker room because she ate croutons on her salad for lunch and couldn’t squeeze into her leotard?  Worthless nonsense, all of it.  None of it mattered to him.  However, when he overheard Mytho’s name in the excited whispers of the gossipmongers, he couldn’t help but tune in.  
     “He what?” Fakhir demanded in shock, thoroughly frightening the quavering music student dishing the tale out to her friends.  
     “I, uh, he…” she stammered brokenly.  
     “It was Annette,” one of the other girls piped up squeakily.  He thought he recognized her from the dance program.  “Sh-sh-she did the whole thing out on the quad for Rue and everyone to see.”  
     Fakhir’s expression darkened and the girls all backed away reactively.   
     “When was this?” he demanded.  
     They all stared at him with wide eyes, “A-a few minutes ago,” the girl who’d first spoken continued to stutter.  
     He narrowed his eyes at them and they retreated further.  “Rue was crying in the girl’s toilet,” the girl from the dance program volunteered in a quavering voice.  “Sh-she was in there with Mina and Heidi an—”  
     “Useless,” he growled, cutting the girl off.  He pushed past them, his emotions a boiling stew.  How could Mytho be so careless?  What was he thinking?  Of course.  He wasn’t thinking at all.  That was exactly his problem.  Not that Fakhir cared much about Rue.  He didn’t exactly approve of her relationship with Mytho, but they were coupled in pas de deux class and it was expected and harmless enough.  Until now he’d never thought that Mytho would do anything to compromise his position at Gold Crown Academy.  But that’s just it—Mytho had no idea what he was doing or how it affected the people around him.  
     “Idiot!” he swore, the heels of his shoes striking the ground smartly, betraying his agitation.  People usually avoided him out of rote, but today the thunderous look on his face sent them scattering before him.  He walked quickly, certain of where he would find Mytho at this time of day.  As if on cue the school’s clock tower chimed, echoing over the quad.   
     Fakhir froze.  A cold chill swept through his body.  Slowly, as if disbelieving his own ears, he turned around and looked up in horror at the clock tower chiming the hour merrily away.  “What’s this?” he demanded under his breath, taking an almost unconscious step toward the offending tower.  “It works?”  
     None of the other students took any notice of it at all, as if they’d been listening to it every day of their lives.  But they hadn’t.   _He_  knew that.  Not once in fifteen years had the sound of the school’s clock tower rung out over the town.  Not once.  He looked around as if expecting to see a thousand dark enemies in every corner.  But of course, all he saw were the boys’ blue blazers and girls’ grey jackets intermingled with the occasional faculty member in black robes walking across the grounds on their way to classes.  His eyes strayed back to the tower whose broken silence was like the harbinger of a terrible battle.  “What the hell is going on?” he murmured.  
     And then whispers filled his ears:   
_“What!?”_ _  
“With Annette?”  
     “Doesn’t he love Rue at all?”  
     “And now with Annette of all people?”  
     “Oh my god!”  
_      He clenched his teeth together.   _Mytho?_ Could he possibly have anything to do with this sudden development?  The how of it all nagged at the back of Fakhir’s mind, and he swept on.  There was nothing Mytho could have possibly done that would have changed the status quo.  Fakhir watched him too closely for that.  No, something else was at play here.  He hurried his steps now.  The clock tower was a mystery that could wait, Fakhir had to confront his roommate  _now._ _  
_      He found him in the breezeway between Noverre Hall and the main studio of the ballet school.  Mytho was leaning on the balustrade gazing out across the quad toward the clock tower that had finished chiming by now.  As usual, he seemed to sense Fakhir before he saw him.  Mytho had always had an uncanny awareness of his surroundings.  “What?” he asked without turning his head.  
     Fakhir’s eyes strayed across the quad to the now-silent tower.  “Need you ask?” he demanded vindictively, arms crossed over his chest as if that could keep him from shaking his roommate until something fell out of that dense head of his.  There were a thousand things he wanted to say.   _Did you hear the tower?  What does it mean?  Has something changed at last?_   But Mytho wouldn’t know the answer to any of those questions.  Mytho didn’t know anything, and that’s just the way it had to stay.  So instead, Fakhir addressed his original complaint.  “Dumping Rue like that was terrible.”  
     Mytho didn’t take his eyes off the quad.  “Was it really?”  He sounded almost interested about it, as if he couldn’t comprehend the difference between terrible and good.  “Why?”  
     Fakhir shook his head in irritation, “Because you don’t understand how people feel,” he growled, “It’s why you do things like that without a thought.”  
     Mytho considered that for a quick second.  “I’m sorry,” he said in his usual monotone.  
     Resentment surged through Fakhir when he realized Mytho didn’t get it.   _Couldn’t_  get it.  He ground his teeth together, “Idiot.  That’s how it should be.”

***

     By the time of partnering practice that afternoon, the entire school had heard about how Mytho dumped Rue on the quad.  Annette had paraded her victory around school all day with a smug little smile plastered on her overly-made-up face.  Rue was silent on the issue, surrounded by the other girls from the special class who had clearly pledged their loyalty to her.   
     Partnering class was the only practice where the junior and senior ballet students were thrown together, probably due to a dearth of male students requiring them to double up.  Mr. Catt presided the partnering class, and while he was giving his daily announcements Aria threw a concerned look at the ballerina.  Rue seemed as distant as ever, her expression aloof, although…  Maybe it was Aria’s imagination, but she thought Rue held her head a little lower, her expression a little more distant, and she looked just a little bit paler.  
     Aria’s eyes slipped to Mytho where he stood beside Fakhir near the back of the class.   _If he doesn’t have a heart,_  she wondered,  _does he even comprehend the heartache of another?_   He seemed impassive, his expression a blank wall, impervious even to the girls around him who were casting looks his way and whispering their rumors to each other.  Beside him, Fakhir crossed his arms and glowered, doing more to silence the whispers with one glare than Mr. Catt could with repeated commands to quiet down.  Fakhir in his black leotard  _was_  pretty intimidating.  Heck, Fakhir in a pink tutu would probably be intimidating.  As if sensing her eyes on him Fakhir’s glare cut her way, and Aria—blushing hotly—stared at the floor.  
     “With ballet, take a day off and you will know,” Mr. Catt was lisping as he paced in front of his students.  “Take three days off and your peers will know.  Take a week off and the audience will know.”  He glared around at them and maybe it was Aria’s imagination but was he looking right at her?  “As this adage amply demonstrates, daily practice is of the utmost importance.  And so we will have a test once a month from now on to assign you to a class—” his eyes cut to Aria this time and she had no doubt about it—“In the worst case you’ll be dropped to probation!”  
     “What?” Aria gasped quietly.   
     Piqué and Lillie were equally astounded.  Most of the junior students were, actually.  The only ones who seemed totally unaffected were the members of the special class… and Annette.  The young dancer stepped boldly forward.  
     “Mr. Catt,” she spoke up.   
     “What?” he snapped, tearing his eyes away from Aria to pick Annette out of the ensemble.  
     She lifted her chin bravely, “Is the special class strictly kept to five?”  
     He narrowed his eyes at her, “Yes.”  
     Annette smiled coldly, “Then I suppose someone will have to be dropped to make room for me.”  
     A dozen gasps whispered through the room.  “Oh my,” Piqué whispered excitedly, “A declaration of war!”  
     Lillie’s hands flew to her face, “Taking not just her lover, but her status too!”  
     “How exciting!”  
     Mr. Catt seemed somewhat at a loss for words.  This was unprecedented, and he didn’t appear prepared to handle it.  “Well if you would like to be the first to demonstrate your skill for the test, then I suppose…”  
     Annette’s eyes cut cruelly to Rue as she said her next bit, “I shall dance a pas de deux with my partner,” she announced.  “Come Mytho!”   
     Two dozen heads turned toward Mytho.  A knot of girls quickly dodged aside and Mytho looked up blankly.  Fakhir was completely indifferent beside him, apparently studying his knuckles with great interest.  
     “An even more exciting turn of events!” Lillie squealed.  
     But Aria was dumbfounded.   _This can’t be happening!_ _  
_      Mr. Catt pulled himself together and clapped his hands, clearing the room of conversation.  “Very well then.  Miss Ameisenbär appears to have prepared a partnering demonstration.”  
     Annette smirked at Rue before flouncing onto the floor.  Mytho hesitated before joining her.  From where she stood with her friends, Aria felt her heart sink to the bottom of her ballet flats.  Piqué and Lillie had to drag her down to a seated position while the class prepared to watch the drama with great anticipation.   
     Across the room, the pianist began a lilting tune and Aria watched dumbfounded as they began to dance.  Annette was  _good._   More than good actually.  Her technique was flawless.  She was a perfect match for Mytho in just about every way.   _Supported pirouette, grand battement, single-handed overhead lift in first arabesque—supporting leg in retiré._   Even Aria was impressed at that feat as Mytho effortlessly supported Annette in the air with one hand.  
     “I guess it wasn’t all talk,” Piqué admitted under her breath.  
     Aria shifted her attention to the audience.  Everyone, even Mr. Catt, seemed enthralled.  Well everyone except Fakhir.  Fakhir just looked bored.  Her eyes fell on Rue, but Rue wasn’t watching the performance.  The ballerina’s gaze was fixed on the floor, her short dark bangs hung like a veil over her eyes.  Aria felt a sympathetic lump rise in her throat.   
     She turned her attention back to the action on the floor.   _Supported promenade, penché, pas de bourreé couru._   The moves were all familiar—things they’d practiced in partnering class, or things they’d seen on stage.  But that’s all they were, just moves played out without feeling, like porcelain figurines spinning to the tune of a music box.   _Arabesque lift right leg in poisson, demi-plié into a swallow pose._ The technique was precise, but it was strangely … soulless.  
     Mr. Catt stepped forward as the music wound down and Mytho replaced his partner in first arabesque.  “Well, well Miss Ameisenbär,” he nodded in approval.  “You have certainly been practicing.”  
     Annette smirked and gave a little curtsy in acknowledgement of her praise.  Her eyes cut across the room.  “Miss Rue, I would very much like to see your pas de deux.”  Her smirk turned into a cold, smug smile and she looped one arm around Mytho, “But whether or not there’s an actual partner for you…”  
     “That was mean,” Aria muttered.  She would gladly loan the boy she was usually partnered with, but Eufemio was probably not the best choice if you wanted to impress someone—which was of course why he was paired with Aria.  
     “Rue is in a pinch,” Piqué whispered excitedly.  
     All eyes turned to Rue who still sat, eyes downcast, surrounded by her peers from the special class.  For a moment no one moved.  Aria didn’t even breathe.  And then Rue gracefully unwound her long limbs and rose to her feet.  She lifted her head, her eyes tracking across the room.  “Would you dance with me?”  
     Aria’s heart lurched.  She looked to her left.  She looked to her right.  And then she looked right back at Rue.  “What?” she gasped, “Me!?” her voice came out in a squeak.  
     Rue smiled gently, “That’s right.”   
     “Duck’s in a pinch!” Lillie exclaimed, even as she pushed her friend forward.  
     Aria fell shakily to her feet while Rue tucked her bangs up off her face.  All around she could hear the whispers.  
_“I wonder why she chose Duck?”_ _  
_“She’s the worst dancer at the school!”_  
_“Maybe it’s an excuse for when she fails?”_  
_      Rue stepped over to Aria who was shaking where she stood.  “Um, Rue,” she said trying to keep her teeth from chattering.  “You know, I’m really terrible at this so I don’t think I’m going to be any good to you at all.”  
     “Don’t worry,” Rue smiled, “Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine.  You’ve seen the mirror routine?”  
     Aria nodded numbly, recalling the routine the special class had presented in the winter workshop, but internally she was panicking.   _I can’t even follow along in warmups!_   She thought as she followed Rue onto the floor.   
     “I’m the mirror,” Rue whispered to her as they turned to face their audience and the pianist began playing.  Aria barely heard the music.  She saw Rue bend to curtsy and followed a beat off tempo and a lot clumsier.   
     “Don’t be nervous,” Rue whispered encouragingly.  
_Not possible!_   Aria thought, but out loud she whispered back, “Okay.”             
     In the audience she saw Piqué lean toward Lillie and whisper something.  
_Oh no!  I’m going to mess this up and it will be all my fault when Annette takes Rue’s place in the special class!_    
     Rue, standing just behind her, lifted one arm gracefully miming Aria whose limbs were shaking as Rue bourreéd and she tiptoed across the floor. Unlike Annette and most of the other girls, she wasn’t wearing pointe shoes for her partnering class, and even if she was there was no way she could dance like Rue.  And then they spun, and Aria almost lost her balance trying to copy the ballerina.   _Oh no!_    _I have to get this right!_ _  
_      A furious resolve swelled inside of her and _something_ began to move in her mind … a picture growing clearer and clearer.  White heat pounded behind her eyes and against her ears.  The sound of the piano became louder, crashing inside her head, and it wasn’t alone.  There were strings and horns, and the lilting trill of a flute.  And she was dressed in a white tutu and bodice, and Rue in black, and she lifted herself up onto the pointe of one glossy white toe shoe in a perfect arabesque, Rue matching her as they faced away from each other.  The white-hot throbbing in her head intensified.  Now she and Rue were moving around each other in a tight circle of chaîne turns, and Aria pushed off from the floor and—  
     “Now jump!” Rue’s voice cut through the burning light.  
     Aria jumped, and Rue grasped her by the waist in a supported grand jeté that made her feel like she was flying!   
     The white heat exploded in her head and there it was again.  She and Rue, hands clasping the other’s elbow as they stood en pointe facing each other, working legs lifted en retiré, right arms gracefully winged out above their heads.  And then pulling past each other, stepping onto their working legs, Rue throws one leg high to her shoulder while Aria dips into a deep penché.             
     The class gasped.   _Wait?  Did that actually happen?_ _  
_      Aria became aware of Rue beside her, supporting her as she fell to the left in fifth position.  And then another white flash and Rue was raised in arabesque supporting Aria’s working leg held high at the peak of a developpé.  Another flash and Rue stood supporting Aria in a series of finger turns.  
     The light burned dully behind Aria’s eyes, white and red, pulsing cold and hot, transforming the world around her into a series of disconnected flashes.  As she danced with Rue it grew brighter and more painful.  But as she danced there was something else:  An intense joy.  For the first time her movements felt right, her steps felt solid.  For the first time she felt like she really could be just as good as Rue.  For the first time...  
     The white-hot light bled into her mind and Aria winced, falling out of the finger turns.  Rue moved quickly to cover her mistake and they finished with Aria in attitude, Rue supporting her working leg and upraised arm.  
     Silence filled the room and Aria looked out at a crowd of her peers with their eyes wide and mouths hanging open.  In the back of the room Annette stood with a stony expression on her face.  Aria swallowed hard, trying to figure out if their audience was shocked at the terrible performance, or in awe.  She tried to remember how she’d done but she couldn’t.  Surely the images she saw in her head had never happened?  She couldn’t dance like that?  Could she?  But if she couldn’t, then why did it feel so real?   
     The white-hot light blazed and burned away.  
     Aria realized that no one was moving.  Two dozen blank faces stared on and she and Rue stood holding their pose expectantly.  Then from the back of the room, from the most unlikely source, a single slow clap was heard.  Aria looked up and saw Fakhir, head down, quietly applauding.  Mytho joined him and the whole class broke out in cheers.  
     Rue grinned and looked over to Aria, “You were wonderful.”  
     Aria smiled back in disbelief, “Really?”  
     Rue nodded encouragingly and for one second they weren’t standing in the practice studio of Gold Crown Academy.  Aria stood in a wide room hung with crystal chandeliers looking down at Rue who lay as still as death on a slab, her eyes closed, a black mist clinging to her skin.  
     Aria blinked and the image was gone.   _What the heck?_   Before she could puzzle over the weird image, her attention was caught by a movement at the back of the room.  Annette was staring at them stone-faced, a single tear sliding down her cheek.  Aria’s pendant burned against her heart.  
     Mr. Catt cleared his throat and stepped forward.  “Well now, that was… insightful.”  He nodded approvingly at Rue and shot a quick strange look at Aria.  “But I think I’ve seen enough to make my decision.”  He looked over the heads of the other girls to where Annette stood, “The special class shall remain the same five people as before.  And Miss Ameisenbär, I’m pleased to see your diligent practice has paid off, and congratulations on making the corps de blanc in the Summer Showcase, but as for advancement the decision is to wait and see this time around.”  
     Annette’s chin went up and her jaw clenched, but she faced him in silence.  
     Mr. Catt turned back to Rue and Aria, “As for you, Miss Arima.  I’m disappointed to see that all that talent isn’t being utilized in your daily classes.”  
_Wait,_  she thought in wonder,  _did he just say I had talent?_ _  
_      “Your performance today was likely entirely due to Miss Kerrane’s instruction.  So until I see as marked an improvement in your classes as you have demonstrated here, you are on probation!”  
     “Qua—” she clapped her hands across her mouth.  
     “Oh no!” Piqué gasped in horror.  
     But Aria’s own alarm was tempered when she alone witnessed Annette, dark eyes burning, turn and flee the room.  Something moved inside her—an instinct—a  _need._    _Go after her, go after her, go after her!_   It beat its way into Aria’s head.  
     She took a step, then another, almost unconsciously following the girl until a hand reached out and grabbed her.  She looked over in surprise to see Eufemio gripping her wrist.   
     “We’re doing turns,” he informed her in his lilting accent, jerking his perfectly coiffed head over his shoulder to indicate everyone else partnering up.  
     “I can’t,” she told him breathlessly, the need inside her pushing her forward.  “Partner Piqué,” she suggested, extracting her hand from his and dashing away.  
     “Miss Arima!”  Mr. Catt’s voice snapped behind her like a thunderclap.  
     But Aria was already out the door, sunlight slanting in her eyes as she stepped onto the broad stone landing and looked around.   _Which way did she go?_   Against her heart the pendant burned, and she flew down the staircase two steps at a time.  She paused only once at the edge of the grass facing out toward the woods behind the school.  She looked down at her ballet flats and out at the grassy ground.  “Oh who cares!” she blew out a frustrated breath and took off running again.  
     She didn’t know how she knew which way to go.  It was just as it was when she saved Mytho from falling.  Some internal compass set her in a direction and she had no choice but to follow.   _This could be really inconvenient sometimes,_  she realized, even as she burst onto a path that led into the woods.  She followed it for a good hundred yards before the sound of someone sobbing echoed back to her.  Aria sped up.  
     Coming around a bend in the path, she suddenly skidded to a stop.  Annette was sitting on the steps of a Greek-style stone gazebo that stood at the center of a clearing.  She had her knees pulled up to her chest and her head buried in her arms.  And she was crying.  More than crying.  Great gut-wrenching sobs tore from the girl as she wept.  But none of that was what made Aria freeze.  
     Mytho was there.  
     Or rather,  _something_  that looked an awful lot like Mytho was there.  
_What the heck?_   Aria wondered, gazing in consternation at the glowing red figure that knelt beside the broken-hearted girl.  In every way it resembled the Prince, and perhaps even more so, for instead of Mytho’s school uniform it wore a doublet patterned with a Lorraine cross over hose and boots, and—  
     Aria stopped analyzing the weird figure when Annette spoke.  “It’s not fair,” the other girl sobbed, repeating the mantra over and over, “It’s not fair!”  
     Whatever instinct had driven Aria to this spot melted away and her heart went out to the weeping girl.  She was so completely  _shattered._   “Annette…” she called out softly, taking a few tentative steps into the clearing.  
     But Annette wasn’t listening to her, she was listening to Mytho’s glowing red doppelganger, and it was  _speaking._   “I know,” it cooed softly, holding the girl in its ghostly arms cradling her head on its spectral shoulder.  “Go on and cry.  It is unfair.”  
     Aria stood stock-still.   _Okay, that isn’t normal._ _  
_      “It is unfair…” the glowing figure soothed.  
     “It’s so unfair it hurts,” Annette wept.  “Please stay with me.”  
     “Of course.”  
     “No way,” Aria breathed, closing her hand around the burning pendant.  
     “I need you, Annette,” murmured the strange figure that was Mytho and wasn’t, “I need your poor broken heart…”  
_Heart._ Aria’s eyes went wide with sudden realization, “Oh, that’s a shard of the Prince’s heart!”  The still air was shattered by the distant tolling of the church bell, and a flock of birds startled out of the trees lining the clearing.  Aria gazed at the broken-hearted girl and the Prince’s heart shard in sudden uncertainty.   _What do I do?_ she wondered.  She remembered the crazy old man’s words about returning the pieces of the Prince’s broken heart, but he’d never really bothered to explain to her how exactly that happened.   _Princess Tutu can do it,_  she was sure _._  But how did she become Princess Tutu?  How did she do it before?  She couldn’t remember.  
_What a useless duck I am!_ _  
_      Her fist tightened on the pendant and she struggled to remember the instinct that had driven her to become Princess Tutu.  It was the same instinct that had driven her here.  The voice of her nightmares echoed in her mind …  _“who will save the Prince?”_     
     She blew out a sharp breath, “I will!”  
     A red light exploded behind her eyes and the world tilted sideways.  She turned, spun, as a warm glow spread out from her heart to wash over her entire body.  This wasn’t like being turned into a duck with its searing heat and pain, or being turned into a girl which made her skin itch and crawl.  This was like stepping through a waterfall of cool liquid starshine and being healed of every injury and insult of life.  Between one breath and the next, Aria went from Duck the worst student at Gold Crown Academy to the elegant Princess Tutu.   
     She looked down at herself when the transformation was complete, and the sight took her breath away.  The gown she wore was gorgeous, a white beaded bodice and skirt over a stiff pink tutu of luminous fabric.  Satiny pink toe shoes encased her feet, and at the base of her back sewn to the gown were two sheer golden wings and a tail of three blue streamers.  On her wrists were golden bracelets, and when she touched her head she felt the weight of a golden crown.  Stiff white feathers held back her hair like those worn by Odette in Swan Lake.   _Is this Princess Tutu?_  she wondered in awe.  
     “Who are you?”  
     Tutu’s attention was suddenly drawn to the girl in the gazebo who gaped up at her white-faced.  She stared back at Annette, her mind racing.   _There is no sane way to answer her question!_   Luckily, she didn’t have to.   
     Annette’s face immediately screwed up into a mask of fury, “Have you come to laugh at me as well?”  
     “No Annette,” she responded, shocked at the implication that she could ever do anything so cruel.  Instead she held out a long elegant arm that was  _not_  covered in freckles and indicated the shard at the girl’s side.  “But the one next to you is not your partner.”  
     “Don’t be absurd!” the wounded girl bawled angrily.  
_Now what?_   Princess Tutu stared at Annette in bafflement.  Saving the Prince from death was easy, but how the heck was she supposed to get a heart shard away from Annette and back into Mytho’s body?  Shouldn’t she know?  Should she?  White heat pounded against a red light in her mind.   
_I’m Princess Tutu.  I’m supposed to save the Prince.  I’m supposed to pick up the pieces of his broken heart with whatever power I possess, and the power I possess is … what?_ _  
_      The red light beat against her eyes and she arched her arms en haut, stalling for time.  “Come dance with me,” she invited.  Like pulling a trigger in her mind, the movements unlocked a power that flowed out of her.  She reached a hand toward the anguished girl, “Annette—”  
     Annette leaped to her feet.  “I refuse!”  
     Beside her the heart shard wavered and glowed, it’s light moving to coat Annette’s skin, growing dull and disappearing altogether.  Not disappearing,  _sinking_  into Annette.  “You couldn’t possibly understand how I feel!” she exclaimed, throwing her head back proudly.   
     Tutu could feel the power that had been coursing out of her, like an arrow shot from a marksman’s bow, when Annette seemed to impossibly catch it and throw it back.  She watched in horror as the girl struck a pose in fourth and then raised up on the pointe of her supporting leg and began whipping around in a series of violent fouetté rond de jambes that swirled Tutu’s magic into a terrible maelstrom.  
_How is she doing this?_   Tutu wondered.  But of course she knew.  The Prince’s heart shard in Annette’s heart gave her the power.  
     A whirlwind was building around the manic dancer.  Dirt and leaves were sucked into it until a black tornado of hate completely encircled the girl.  “Go away!” she shouted through the force of her frenzy which built a wall of swirling debris to cut herself off from the world.  
     “Annette!” Tutu cried out, throwing her arms up to shield her face from the frenzied onslaught.  “You don’t know what you’re doing!”  
     “Of course I do!” she shouted back triumphantly.  “To dance!  To make your audience surrender.  That is art!”  
     “No!”  Tutu stepped forward and tried to leap through the maelstrom to reach the girl.  “That isn’t how you really feel!”  
     Annette spun and spun, refusing to give up and refusing to give in as she swirled the wall of magic and nature around herself.  “No!  I believe it from the very bottom of my heart!”  She began to spin impossibly faster, pulling power from within herself now to throw up another wall of force.  
     Still leaping, Tutu collided into the second attack and fell back.  She struck the earth hard and light exploded in star bursts behind her eyes.  She braced herself against the ground and looked up in horror to see the clouds swirling down to meet the hysterical girl’s tornado of force.  Her eyes went wide.   _She doesn’t know what she’s doing!  She doesn’t know the forces she’s playing with.  She could destroy the whole school, the whole town!_   Tutu shook her head,  _wait, how do I know that?_ But it didn’t matter.  Wasn’t it obvious?  Annette’s attack was brewing a storm of epic proportions and Tutu had to do something to stop her before the power escaped beyond her control.  
     Except it wasn’t  _her_  power.  It was Tutu’s.  And it was being used to destroy.   _Does that mean_ I’m _doing this?_   It was her power after all that Annette was controlling.   _Then why can’t I stop it?_ _  
_      “This is my way of dancing!” Annette cried out, spinning even faster than before.  
     “Then why?” Tutu demanded, near tears as she winced and pushed herself up to her knees.  “Why do you seem to be in such pain?  There’s no joy in your dancing,” she climbed to her feet, ignoring the stab of agony that shot through her hip.  “None at all.  What are you so bitter about?”  
     Annette’s eyes shone like an open wound and in them Tutu could see a reflection of Rue.  “That,” the girl admitted tearfully.   
     It opened in Tutu’s mind like a rose blossoming into maturity.  She could see Annette watching Rue practice.  She could feel the wonder the girl had felt watching Rue leap and dance.  She saw Annette approaching Rue, saw Rue turn toward her.  She heard Annette gush in her awe,  _“How wonderful!  Please tell me, what must I do to dance so wonderfully?”_ _  
_      She could see Rue shrug and she heard Rue’s reply, “ _I don’t know.  Practice?”_ _  
_“I’ll work hard!”__  she heard Annette exclaim.   _“I’ll work hard until I can dance that well, just like you Miss Rue.”_ _  
_      She saw Rue’s eyes widen, and then she saw the girl smile.   _“You can’t.  It’s not possible.”_ _  
_      And as if she was Annette, Tutu felt the sting of those words.  
     “I want to beat Miss Rue.  To win by any means necessary!” the dancer shouted at the sky to the crack of thunder and lightning’s flash.   
     “Those feelings…” Tutu looked up at the sky, counting the seconds, knowing she didn’t have much time.  “Those feelings, like this power, are not truly yours Annette.”  Something solidified inside Tutu’s mind: _Power over the flowing and formless, the growing and changing, emotion… and feeling._    That was her power.  Certainty broke through her insecurity.  She rose up en pointe, sweeping her arms through an elegant port de bras, and with that motion sweeping up the violent frenzy of her power.  Calmly she moved pas de bourré suivi, cutting through the maelstrom as it melted around her.   
     In shock, Annette dropped her working leg and the girl stopped spinning.   
     Tutu raised her head and smiled, holding her arms en haut she swirled her hands around each other …  _the mime for dance…._    She held her hand out to Annette again and the ground beneath her feet began to shimmer and ripple like the surface of a beautiful pond.  The whirlwind cooled to a fragrant, blossomed breeze.  The clouds overhead calmed, and a shimmering bejeweled mist began to fall.  “Forget your bitterness and hatred,” Tutu murmured gesturing to the water with her free hand, “I want to see how you truly dance.”  
     Annette’s eyes went wide with wonder.  
     “It will be much more beautiful,” Tutu went on, leaning forward with an arabesque so that her outstretched hand hovered just within reach of Annette’s.  “Let us dance together to your heart’s content.”  
     The girl’s eyes grew wide with awe and slowly, tentatively, she took Tutu’s hand.  In her mind there was a click and Tutu smiled again.  They both knew the moves of the dance Tutu initiated.  They had seen them played on the stage this past spring when the Gold Crown Company performed Swan Lake, and Tutu knew on some strange instinctual level that Annette had been as much in awe with the cursed swan as she herself had been.   _Except that didn’t really happen because I’m just a duck, right?_ _  
_      Tutu pushed the thought aside, arching her back and bending her arms in the pose of the doomed swan girl.   _She’s like me,_  she thought even as she danced.   _Trapped in the body of a bird, wanting to escape._   White-hot light beat inside her mind.  “Be honest,” she instructed as they mirrored each other over the surface of the water, and Tutu wasn’t sure who she was talking to—Annette or herself.   _But Annette’s the same way too,_  she realized.   _Trapped by an emotion that isn’t hers._   “Be free!” she commanded.   
     Her partner’s face relaxed, beauty and wonder emanating from her every movement.  The steps suddenly weren’t important.  All at once Annette stopped focusing on technique and suddenly began  _living_  the part.  
     “That’s it!” Tutu exclaimed, “This is truly your way of dancing!”  
     “I feel such joy!” Annette sang, and in that perfect moment her hand grew warm in Tutu’s.  A light flared in the girl’s eyes and she fell away collapsing senseless to the suddenly solid ground.  As she fell, Tutu withdrew the heart shard by its glowing, insubstantial hand.  
     She stared in awe at the strange spectral visage of Mytho.  “You must be—”  
     “I am the feeling of bitter disappointment,” the figure spoke to her, “shattered and forgotten.”  
     Tutu stared at it, suddenly understanding.   _The Prince’s heart shards are scattered emotions.  That’s why I have the power to control them._   Her eyes went to Annette who, possessed by bitter disappointment, had spiraled into such anguish.   _If it did this to Annette what will it do to Mytho?_   It wavered before her as if awaiting her judgment and she realized that  _this_  was the moment where she would truly become Princess Tutu … or not.  She swallowed back a sudden wave of emotion and tilted her chin up to look the heart shard in the eye.  “This is not the place to which you belong,” she told it softly.  
     An expression crossed its face of such utter longing.   “Must I wander again?”  
     Her eyes fluttered closed and her heart twisted.   _The first piece of his heart I return and it’s nothing but disappointment._ She sighed wearily, “You need to go back.”  
     “Can I go back?” It asked as though this were a possibility it had never considered.   
     Eyes still closed, she nodded once, “Yes.”  But when she opened her eyes she saw the most glorious sight.  The shard wore the face of Mytho, and that face was smiling back at her.   
     “I’m so glad,” it spoke.  And with those three simple words it began to glow and reform into a shining jewel in her hand.   
     She gazed down at it in wonder.  It looked so perfect, so beautiful against her pale skin.  It was hard to imagine that it could ever really hurt anyone.  But disappointment, she knew, had the power to cut like a knife.  Her hands closed around the jewel.   _It has to go back._

***

     Mytho didn’t know what had compelled him to leave the ballet school.  One minute he was dancing with Rue and the next he was walking toward the woods as if being pulled by some elusive power.  There was a light in those woods, a soft red glow that seemed to draw him and he followed it.  Something in that glow called to him and he felt a strange … something in his chest.  Almost a pull.  
     What he found when he entered the clearing didn’t surprise him.  It was almost as if he’d expected her to be standing there all along.  She turned to face him, her blue eyes huge in her face as if he’d startled her.  Pale hands clutched something to her chest and for a long minute he simply stared at the girl who had saved him and there was now no doubt in his mind who she was.   _Princess Tutu._ _  
_      “Mytho,” she spoke in a dulcet tone.  The sound of her voice, as it had before, affected him greatly.  Something … something moved at the back of his mind … a thought or a memory he couldn’t quite grasp.  Almost hesitantly she held her hands toward him, her fingers uncurling to reveal the bright red gem she held.  
     He heard a sudden ringing in his ears that blotted out all other sound, and the pulling in his chest abruptly became a hard jerk.  It wasn’t the girl that was drawing him, he realized.  It was the jewel.  He watched as it floated out of her hand, pulled along an invisible line that led right to a spot at the center of his chest.   
     He gasped in surprise when the jewel struck him, burning against his skin, and raised his hands as if to catch it and cast it away.  But his fingers only closed over the soft material of his shirt.  A new sensation struck him as the jewel seemed to be burning its way through his skin and then—  
_A wide marbled hall, the floor like a chess board under his feet…_ _  
_Dark stains … black blood … a battlefield of death …_  
_Glowing red eyes and—_  
_“Go on.”_  
_“I can still fight.”_  
_“No.  Get them out.  They’re all that matters now.”_  
_“What about you?”_  
_A mask … a sword … a purpose … a__ feeling _…_ _  
_“That doesn’t matter anymore.”_  
_      “Mytho!”  
     His eyes flew open.  The clearing was empty.  The princess was gone.  But something else had taken a hold of him.  It writhed inside of him like a live thing and he staggered.  Mytho cried out, clutching at his chest incomprehensibly.   _What is this?_ He wondered.   _What was that?  Did it happen, or did I imagine it?_   A strange pain like sensation returning thrilled through him.   
     “Mytho!”  
     The voice again.  He knew that voice.  He tried to move forward, tried to respond to it, but his body failed him.  His knees gave out and he started to fall.  
     Suddenly Fakhir was there catching him before he hit the ground, “What’s wrong Mytho?” he asked, and Mytho heard something in his voice.  Something he couldn’t understand.  Was that … panic?  
     He strained around, trying to see Fakhir’s face.  He had to know.  “What is … this feeling?”  He struggled with it, still seeing those burning eyes, still feeling that terrible realization but... “I don’t understand.”  
     Fakhir’s face went dead-white, his eyes wide and full of ... something.  “A feeling?”


	5. Das Gelübde der Prinzessin

**_The Princess’s Vow_ **

             

     There was a lot for the students of Gold Crown to gossip about the next day.  Annette’s loss to Rue in class took a swift backseat to Mytho’s abandonment of Rue later in that same class.  That lasted a good half hour before word of Rue and Mytho’s reunion and recoupling flared to the forefront.  For those uninterested in romantic speculation, there was always the fact that Fakhir had reportedly discovered Annette unconscious in the woods and the girl was now being required to see the school counselor.  All manner of violent insinuations ensued from  _that_  rumor.  But nobody talked about a magical duck who could turn into a girl who could turn into a princess to restore the shards of a storybook prince’s broken heart, and although nobody was talking about it, it was the only thing on Aria’s mind.  
     Well, that and the fact that she was on probation, which apparently meant that instead of attending ballet classes with her friends she was relegated to the beginner class.  It’s hard not to feel ridiculous when you’re doing plié’s at the barre with a group of eight-year-olds … and the eight-year-olds are better.  
_“Watch your turnout!”_  the little girl behind her kept whispering, and Aria couldn’t wait to be out of there.  
     Of course, her turnout would probably be better if she didn’t feel like rotating her hip might make it come unhinged altogether thanks to the bruise that blossomed over the protruding bone this morning.  Even Miss Baillieu, the ebullient basic ballet instructor, noticed her wincing and seemed to take it easy on her.  All things considered though, Aria figured she’d fared better from that encounter than the other two.  
     Annette was entirely absent, not just from practice, but from their morning classes as well.  And Mytho …  _how_ is _Mytho?_   She kept seeing the glowing red piece of his heart as it had smiled at her, and then Mytho’s face screwing up in pain when she returned it.  She hated herself for running away when she’d heard Fakhir’s voice, and she fell asleep that night calling herself a coward.  All through her morning lessons she didn’t hear her teachers but only the constant whispered thoughts:   _Is he alright?  Did it hurt him?  Should I have stayed to make sure he was okay?_    
     She didn’t see him around campus all morning, and of course she didn’t have any classes with him at all on Fridays.  She worried what returning a heart shard might have done to him—especially bitter disappointment.  That couldn’t be a good thing, right?   
     She really wished she could talk to her friends about what was happening.  But that was impossible of course.  Aria absolutely could not, under any circumstances, admit to anyone that she was Princess Tutu—and not just because they’d lock her up in an asylum if she did.  No, she couldn’t tell anyone because if she told them she was Princess Tutu, they might also find out she was really only a duck.  And then she’d lose everything.  So instead she soldiered through her morning classes feeling very much isolated in her own head.  
     The only practice she still had with the junior students was pointe conditioning before lunch.  It was her worst practice, her shortcomings as a danseuse being even more painfully obvious when she was en pointe.  Couple that with her usual distracted state and it was a perfect recipe for detention.  Today was ten times worse.  Between her hip, and her worries, she could barely keep up with her peers.  Even Piqué and Lillie noted her unusual absentmindedness.  
     “What is with you?” Piqué whispered to Aria after her third reprimand from an irate Ms. Ziegenfuss.  
     “Nothing,” Aria sighed wearily, “I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”  A part of her really wished she could tell her friends what was going on, but that was impossible of course.  
     “Really?” Lillie asked, as they waited in line to practice chaînés across the floor.  “Why not?”  
     Aria’s stomach sank to the bottom of her pretty pink satin pointe shoes.  There was one obvious answer:   _Well you see I’m a duck who can turn into a girl who can turn into a princess who can return the shards of a prince’s shattered heart.  Only now I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.  And oh, by the way, Mytho is the Prince from a story whose heart I’m restoring._ She laughed darkly at her own thoughts.   _Yeah,_ that’ll _go over well._ _  
_      “What’s so funny?” Piqué asked, throwing her a strange look.  “You have a weird dream or something?”  
     “Well, uh…” Aria stammered, her own thoughts tangling her tongue as sudden inspiration struck.  “Kind of.”  
     Lillie’s eyes brightened, “Oh do tell!” she gushed, “Was it a dream of love and tragedy?”  
_Tragedy, definitely tragedy._ “It wasn’t really a very happy dream,” she stalled, wondering how much she could divulge in this guise.  “See, there’s this really strong and handsome prince in it and he kind of looked like Mytho, but this prince is fighting against an evil raven.  He can seal the raven away if he shatters his own heart.  But when he loses his heart he also loses his feelings, and the prince’s eyes always look so lonely, and for this prince I…”  
     “Is that all?” Piqué demanded, cutting her off abruptly.  
     Aria stared at her in surprise.  “What?”  
     “Everyone’s heard that story.”  
     She blinked.  “They have?” _  
_      Lillie nodded superiorly.  “That’s straight out of the Prince and the Raven.”  
_The Raven._   Something white and hot burst like a flashbulb behind her eyes.  
     “It’s an old fairytale,” Piqué shrugged, “everyone knows it.  Of course, I never thought the Prince in the story looked like Mytho, I always pictured him older.”  
     “Was he in practice this morning?” Aria asked suddenly.  
     Lillie giggled, “The Prince, or Mytho?”  
_Same person,_  Aria thought but didn’t say.  
     “Sure,” Piqué shrugged unconcernedly, “He was with Fakhir like he always is.”  
     “How did he look?” Aria asked excitedly.   
     “Dreamy,” Piqué breathed with a far-off look in her eyes.  
     Aria sighed, “I meant Mytho, not Fakhir.”  
     “Oh him?” she shrugged again, “looked the same as he always looks I guess.  Kind of out of it, you know.”  
     “Yeah,” Lillie agreed, “Like there’s not much going on up there.”  
     “Hey!” Aria flared up defensively.  “That isn’t nice, and it’s not true!”  
     “Sheesh, what’s with you, it’s not like he’s your boyfriend,” Piqué complained.  
     “Yeah, you’ve never even really talked to him, have you Duck?” Lillie pointed out.  
     “Well not really,” she admitted, “but I have—”  _have what?  Run into him a couple of times, saved his life, restored a piece of his heart…_ _  
_      Piqué’s eyebrows went up, “You’ve what?” she asked, immediately on the prowl for information.  “Don’t tell me something happened yesterday?”  
     Lillie’s green eyes went wide.  “Mytho also left class early.  You weren’t with him, were you?”  
     “Yeah right,” Piqué scoffed at Lillie, “I think three girlfriends in one day is too many even for Mytho.”  
     “He’s not like that,” Aria complained, suddenly irate.  “He didn’t even do anything with Annette, it was all her.”  
     “Well if it isn’t that, then what’s gotten into you?” Piqué demanded.  “Don’t tell me you’re all upset just because you had a bad dream.”  
     “More like a nightmare,” she muttered under her breath,  _and it’s still going._ Suddenly Aria recalled the crazy old man in the woods and the book he was writing in.  What had he said?  “Um, what’s the name of the guy who wrote the story?”  
     “What story?”  Piqué asked, then remembering, “The Prince and the Raven, you mean?”  
     “His name?” Lillie glanced over at her in surprise, “It’s Drosselmeyer, don’t you know?”  
_Drosselmeyer._   That was what he had said.  For some inexplicable reason, Aria felt a slow chill crawl down her spine.   
     “Yes, that’s right,” Ms. Ziegenfuss’s stentorian voice broke in as she instructed the girls on the floor.  She cast a dark look at the trio in line, “Elongate your spine.”  
     “Shh!” Lillie shushed before they could get in more trouble.  
     But Aria couldn’t keep quiet now, not after what she’d just learned.  “So this Drosselmeyer person, does he live somewhere in this town?”  
     “Huh?” Piqué frowned at her.  “No way, he died ages ago!”  
     “What?” Aria exclaimed in shock.  
     “The story ends part of the way through too,” Lillie put in.  
     “Oh yeah,” Piqué turned to Lillie nodding, “didn’t he die while he was writing the book or something?”  
     “Yeah, I think so.”  
     He died! _But then how did he give me the pendant that turned me into a girl, and more importantly how did the story he wrote come to life anyway and—_ _  
_      “Look it’s Mr. Catt!” Pique hissed suddenly.  
     “He must be here for the Giselle corps!” Lillie squealed.  
     Aria looked up just as three more girls went whirling across the floor en pointe.  A little pang of something bitter snagged at her heart and she looked down at her own pointe shoes.  Yesterday she’d danced a pas de deux en pointe  _on water!_   If Mr. Catt could see her do that maybe he’d cast her in Giselle,  _but of course that will never happen._    
     Piqué, practicing her pliés in third position as she waited, glanced over at Aria. “Hey Duck, have you made up your mind yet?”  
     Aria glanced over at her distractedly.  “About what?”  
     Lillie giggled, “Oh come on, Duck.  Did you just tune out the last two minutes?”  
     As a matter of fact she had.  “What?”  
     “Did you forget what’s going on this weekend?” Lillie gasped in mock horror.  
     Given everything that had happened, yes, yes she had forgotten what was going on.   _Assuming, of course, that as a duck I even knew what it was to begin with._    
     Lillie practically glowed with intrigue, but it was Piqué who answered Aria’s unspoken question.  “The fire festival.”  
     Aria turned toward her, “The what now?”  
     “Don’t you remember?” Piqué rolled her eyes, “we’re asking if you’ve decided what you’re going to wear to the festival.”  
     “Fire festival?”  What would she wear?  Aria possessed precisely one outfit other than her school uniform.   
     Lillie grabbed her shoulder and spun her about, “It’s okay Duck,” she assured her, clearly reading her mind.  “You can always borrow some of my clothes if you like.”  
     “Yeah, we know you don’t really have that many,” Piqué put in.   
_That’s because I’m just a bird to begin with._   She squashed the dark thought down firmly.   _But I’m also Princess Tutu,_   _and yesterday it was Tutu who returned a shard of the Prince’s heart._   She bit her lip again,  _assuming that’s a good thing._ _  
_      “Hey Duck,” Piqué whispered urgently.   
     Her eyes were closed, trying to blot out the look of pain on Mytho’s face when the heart shard returned.   _Yeah, yeah, I get it.  I’m a stupid worthless duck who doesn’t know anything about anything.  What do you even wear to a fire festival?_ _  
_      “Duck!”  
_What_ is _a fire festival anyway?_ _  
_      “Miss Arima!”  
     “I get it,” she said aloud, “tell me about the fire festival.”  Only when she opened her eyes she didn’t see Lillie and Piqué, probably because they were already doing their chaînés across the floor under Ms. Ziegenfuss’s direction.  Instead she looked up at the thundercloud building on Mr. Catt’s face.   _Oops._ _  
_      Mr. Catt regarded her coldly, his arms folded over his broad chest.  “Very well, I’ll tell you.”   
_Whew!_   Aria breathed a small sigh of relief, wondering if she could skate out of this one unscathed.  “Yes sir.”  
     “The fire festival is a town fête where people dress in the old ways and dance around a bonfire.”  
     That didn’t sound like a party that the staid and stoic people of Goldkrone would condone.  It sounded more like a pagan mating ritual.  But the image it conjured in Aria’s mind was strangely elusive …  _Half a hundred people in bejeweled regalia from Rome through the Renaissance, waltzing around St. Godfrey’s Square as the sky above ripples with a riot of colors._   A flash of white light burned the image away.  
     “But most important of all,” he went on, “is the golden apple given to the couple who dances the most exquisitely at the event.”  
     Her eyes widened, “Golden apple?”  _Maybe it is a pagan mating ritual._ _  
_      “That’s right.  It’s said that the couple to whom the golden apple is given will be bound together forever.”  
_Bound together forever!_ Aria tried to figure out if that was a blessing or a curse.  If bound together forever meant spending forever with someone like Mytho, well maybe.  But what if it was someone like Fakhir?  She shuddered.   _That’s nothing to do with me anyway because I’m just a duck._ _  
_      “Miss Arima!”  
     She snapped back to the moment, realizing again she was the last of the line, the other girls waiting not-so-patiently at the other end of the studio.  “Oh.  I’m sorry.  What were we doing?”  
     Mr. Catt’s eyebrows went up.  “You needn’t be so preoccupied with the fire festival, Miss Arima.  You will be spending this weekend cleaning every practice studio from top to bottom!”  
     “But Mr. Catt—” she protested.  
     “Would you like to be doing it for a week?” he asked dangerously.  
     “No sir,” she sighed disappointedly.   _Probation and now detention._

***

     Fakhir wasn’t used to being in trouble, and if he’d known it would have caused this much upheaval, he might have left that girl lying unconscious in the woods for the wolves to find.  Not that there were wolves in Goldkrone Towne.  Foxes maybe, and the worst they’d do is curl up beside her and fall asleep.  Or eat her face off.  Either option was more tolerable over his having to take time out of afternoon classes to give a report to Headmaster Heigl on the  _“Circumstances of his discovery.”_    
_Well let’s see,_  he thought bitterly.   _I go looking for Mytho and find him standing over some unconscious brat he just dumped his girlfriend for, and he looks like he’s been punched repeatedly in the stomach and he starts talking about_ feelings.  There was nothing about  _that_  situation that was going to end well for his roommate.  That’s why he’d gotten Mytho out of there before going back for the girl.  
     The only good thing that came from any of it was that Annette wasn’t injured and apparently didn’t remember anything from the previous day.  So when Fakhir gave his “report” he edited out everything concerning Mytho, and claimed to have simply found her while walking by himself.  He wasn’t sure if the headmaster entirely believed him, but sometimes it pays to be the star of the class especially when you’re partnered with the headmaster’s daughter for pas de deux.  
     “Is that all?” Fakhir grunted when he’d finished.  
     “Yes Mr. Suziere, thank you for your time.” The headmaster dismissed him with a nod and Fakhir left his office feeling like the whole thing was a colossal waste of time.  What did he care what had happened to some inconsequential girl?  The only thing he wanted to know was  _what happened to Mytho?_ _  
_      Fakhir had searched that whole clearing for any scrap of evidence that might indicate what happened, and there were a whole lot of scraps, but nothing that led up to any definitive conclusion.  The area around the gazebo was trashed.  Whole branches littered the ground like a great storm had struck even though the day was bright and clear.  Most peculiar was the ground around the gazebo itself.  The debris and dirt there were patterned on the ground almost like the ripples of water.  It was a pattern he’d noticed outside the dorms two days ago as well.  
     The only footprints evident in the glade were the girl’s and Mytho’s.  Fakhir was positive Mytho had done nothing to Annette.  The stupid fool couldn’t even kill a spider, let alone knock out some helpless little girl.  Hell, he’d go out of his way to protect some worthless creature even if it meant losing his own life.  He had absolutely no concept of his own personal safety, which made looking after him more than a full-time job.  
     Fakhir’s eyes narrowed into a hot glare as he recalled the look on Mytho’s face, and the words he’d said.   _“What is this feeling?”_   But that was impossible.  Mytho couldn’t  _feel,_  could he?  He didn’t say anything when Fakhir dragged him back to the dorm.  He just sat on his bed staring into nothing no matter how many times Fakhir asked him what had happened.  It was like talking to a statue.   _More like talking to a rock._   Not that talking to Mytho ever yielded any more satisfying results.  
     The clock tower chimed the last hour of the school day and Fakhir paused to glance out a nearby window at the tower rising over the quad.   _That’s right,_  he recalled.   _It works now, even though it hasn’t rung once in fifteen years._   His eyes strayed toward the ballet school glittering opposite the tower,  _and Mytho said he was_ feeling.  
     There was no way the two weren’t connected.  He ground his teeth together and hurried his steps.  He had to get back to Mytho before the idiot could slip away again.  The last time he was out of Fakhir’s sight he started having  _feelings._    
     He pushed angrily past a knot of students dawdling in his way.  Didn’t any of them get it?  Nothing else in Fakhir’s life mattered except guarding over Mytho.  That was Fakhir’s responsibility.  He’d neglected every personal need or desire for over a decade to fulfill that responsibility.  And now something, or  _someone_ , had come along to unravel all that work.  Fakhir ground his teeth together and turned his steps toward the ballet school.  He was  _not_  going to let that happen!

***

     Aria’s detention started after the last bell of the day, and while Piqué and Lillie trotted off toward the Marktplatz for pizza and strudel ready to get started with their weekend, Mr. Catt showed Aria where the janitor’s closet was.  “And be sure to put everything back the way it was when you’re done,” he ordered.  “Ms. Ziegenfuss will lock up when you’ve finished today.”  
     “Yes sir,” Aria agreed, forcing a smile.  After all, just because she was stuck in detention didn’t mean she had to be upset about it or anything.  Right?  
     “I hope this teaches you why you should pay attention in class, Miss Arima,” Mr. Catt lisped.  “And why you  _definitely_  should attend your classes!”  
     “Yes sir,” she sighed, a little less enthusiastic than before.  
_Of course if he knew_ why _I’d had to skip out on my class he’d think differently,_ she grumbled discontentedly to herself.  Then she tried to imagine explaining a fairytale prince and Princess Tutu to Mr. Catt.   _On the other hand, maybe not, unless I want to join Annette in after-school counseling._ _  
_      Left to her task, Aria shrugged out of her grey uniform jacket and hung it on a rung on the wall, then rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and set to work filling a bucket.  She grabbed a sponge and hauled the heavy bucket into the nearest practice studio and set to scrubbing the mirror that covered one long wall.  Daylight streamed in through the large window that fronted the school, casting shadows like a checkerboard across the floor.   
     Aria hummed as she worked, occasionally brushing a rogue red curl off her forehead.  Halfway down the mirror she glanced over and noticed the glass case in one corner of the room.  It held a small gramophone, not nearly as large as the one in the main studio upstairs, as well as an assortment of music books.  One book in particular caught her eye.  It had the same striking D on its spine that had been on the book Drosselmeyer had in the woods.  
     Aria dropped her sponge in surprise.  Head buzzing, she crossed the floor and opened the case, reaching for the book.  She pulled it down and stared at the cover, sounding out the title with difficulty.  “The Prince and the Raven,” she read.   _No way!  It’s here?_   Aria glanced around quickly before eagerly opening the book.  She stared at the small ornate words that covered the page.  They swam around her head the way they always did when she tried to read, and she flipped several pages in vain.   
     She snapped the book closed with an irritated snort.  “So, if Drosselmeyer really is dead like Piqué and Lillie said, then who was it I met in the woods?  It couldn’t be the same person, right?”  She opened the book again and this time it opened to a picture of an evil raven with glowing red eyes.  Before it stood a prince with a sword in his hands, and a golden crown on a head of snowy white hair.  “The prince who came out of the story,” she realized.  “Mytho.”  
     Her eyes turned to the large window that took up most of the opposite wall.   _How can a story come to life?_ Some stories were real, of course, nonfiction accounts of actual people and events.   _But can a story come true after it’s written?_ And which comes first, the characters or the story?   _Did Drosselmeyer create Mytho in the story, or was Mytho real before that?_   Something flickered back to her reflected in the window, a vision, a memory.  But as quickly as it came to her, a white light like a sunbeam flashed over the leaded pane and it was gone.  “Something that strange…” she mused, “but I guess it isn’t as strange as a duck turning into a girl.  So that would mean Mytho really is a character out of a story…”  
     Or was he?  “That must be why he’s so handsome,” she murmured to herself.  But her mind was mulling over something else.   _Drosselmeyer._   Why did the name send shivers down her spine as if she should be afraid of it?  Hadn’t he given her the pendant?  Hadn’t he turned her into a girl so she could save Mytho?  Or had he?   
     Something flickered in the window again and Aria tried to focus on it, tried to chase down the tail of the thought forming in her head even as a headache began pounding in her temples.  The images reflecting in the window came into sharper focus, the floor like a checkerboard and the Prince and—  
     “The Prince!” she gasped, gazing through the window suddenly to see Mytho standing outside.  She dropped the book reflexively.  He was sitting at the swan fountain with a book in his hand, his eyes on the splashing water.  Aria took a few steps closer to the window.  He didn’t look like anything much at all had happened yesterday.  She watched as he got to his feet and Aria saw Rue join him.  “I wonder if Rue knows about this,” Aria murmured.  She noticed the basket in the girl’s hands.   
_So they’re going on a picnic, I guess he’s okay after all._   A twinge of disappointment, maybe even jealousy, pinched at her heart.  She pictured it, a sunny field under a widespread oak, the sound of the insects buzzing, a blanket spread out, and sandwiches…  Her stomach rumbled uncomfortably reminding her that it was dinner time. “Lucky her,” Aria sighed sadly.   _But you know, when you get right down to it, I’m just a duck._   It was sad, really, that she had to keep reminding herself of that.  Another twinge of disappointment lanced through her as she stared after them until they’d disappeared.    
     The studio door opened abruptly, and Aria spun around in surprise ready to explain to Ms. Ziegenfuss why she wasn’t washing the mirror.  But the person standing in the doorway wasn’t the ballet instructor.  It was Fakhir.  
     He glared into the room at her, “Hey,” he called, his voice strangely loud in the empty studio.  “Have you seen Mytho around?”  
     Gaping, Aria snapped her mouth shut.  “Is something the matter with Mytho?” she asked automatically.  
     Fakhir glanced away from her, a foul expression on his face.  “He didn’t wait for me after class.”  
_Really?_   What was with him?  Aria wondered.  She didn’t understand his strange possessiveness over Mytho.  “Sheesh, who cares about that?” she rebuffed him, crossing her arms over her chest.  “He’s Rue’s boyfriend after all.”  _Not yours._ She left the words unsaid but they seemed to reverberate in the air around her.  
     Fakhir’s eyes cut to her like razor blades, _“What?”_  
     Aria chewed her lip anxiously, mistaking the shock and rage in his voice as affront.  “I—”  
     He stepped into the room, covering the distance between them with startling speed.  “So he’s with Rue?” he burst out, suddenly only inches away from her.  
     Aria retreated, her back hitting the mirror and she realized with panic that she was cornered.  “What?” she gasped in surprise, suddenly terrified.  This wasn’t indignation.  This was rage.   
     “Where’d they go?” he glowered, his eyes dark and dangerous.  He raised his voice, shouting now.  “Tell me!”  
     “I don’t know!” she gasped out on a tremulous breath, eyes wide, clutching the barre behind her as if for support.  It was ridiculous how far up she had to look to see his face when he was standing this close.  
     “Don’t lie to me!” he growled.  
     “It’s the truth!” she replied, cringing back and putting her hands up automatically to shield herself as if afraid he might hit her.  
     He narrowed his eyes at her, noting her posture.  With a grumpy huff he turned his back on her and strode away.   
     Aria relaxed slightly,  _I wonder if he knows the truth about Mytho._ Unable to stop herself she took a step after him. “Say uh, do you happen to know the story of the Prince and the Raven?”  
     He stopped in his tracks, his back to her.  “What about it?”  
_Am I the only one who doesn’t know this story?_  she wondered silently.  But aloud, “Oh!  Um, well, nothing really about it…”  
     He turned to look at her over his shoulder, seeming to size her up for a moment before he rolled his eyes and turned away, “A tale for children and nothing more.”  And with that he left, firmly closing the door behind him to effectively cut off any possibility of further conservation.

***

     Unsettled, Fakhir left the ballet school at a hurried pace in his search for Mytho.  He’d already checked the main studio and the locker rooms when he found the girl in the small practice hall.  She hadn’t been very helpful, though something about their conversation left him with a vaguely uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.   _Idiot,_  he thought,  _did she really think I was going to hit her?_   Outside of fencing and savate training, Fakhir had never actually hit anyone in his life.  Though he wasn’t oblivious to his reputation at school, it was entirely unwarranted.  
     He shoved the girl and the image of her cringing away out of his mind.  She didn’t matter.  None of them mattered.  Only Mytho.  And if Mytho was with Rue like she said, then there wasn’t any harm in it.  Was there?  He narrowed his eyes and sped up, trotting around the swan fountain at the center of the quad.  There wasn’t any harm in taking his eyes off Mytho in partnering class yesterday and look where  _that_  got them all.   
     In his head he cursed Annette for getting knocked out in the woods.  And cursed the Headmaster for keeping him late, and while he was at it he cursed Mytho for not following orders, and cursed the girl in the practice studio for being useless.  He was almost to the administrative building and the end of his list of people to curse when he suddenly froze in his tracks and looked back at the ballet school.  At this distance with the sun reflecting off the face of the building, it was impossible to see inside the school.  Still, he had an eerie feeling he was being watched.   _That girl,_  he realized, thinking that’s how she must have thought Mytho was with Rue.  She’d probably seen them together out here.  
     Wasn’t she the same girl Mytho had hurt his foot for?  He tried to recall her name but couldn’t.  Everyone called her Bird, right?  Or Goose?  She was an underclassman, he knew that much for sure.  A freshman or a sophomore maybe.  He wouldn’t have any classes with her if she was younger than that.  And she’d asked him about the Prince and the Raven.  Did she have anything to do with what was going on?  
     Grinding his teeth together, he turned away.  The girl didn’t matter.  Only Mytho mattered.  He started walking again, more rapidly this time.  He had to find Mytho and get to the bottom of this,  _before_  something terrible happened.

***

     Aria watched Fakhir stomp away from the school, and when he stopped and looked back at her, she ducked quickly out of the way.  Of course, it would have been impossible for him to see her.  Still, she didn’t want him to think she was staring.  Though she wasn’t staring, she was thinking.   
     Fakhir scared her.  She didn’t like the way he was around Mytho.  She didn’t like the way he’d talked to Mytho in the practice studio, and she definitely didn’t like herself for being scared off by him yesterday before she could make sure the Prince was alright.  And then just now she’d felt like a cornered animal when he spoke to her.  
     Would he really hurt Mytho?  She didn’t think so.  But she didn’t know what he might do to Rue.  She had no doubt he was capable of violence and he hadn’t seemed happy to hear that Mytho and Rue were together.   _But I have detention, so I have to stay here and finish it, right?_ _  
_      “Stupid duck!” she swore, stepping away from the window.  She swept up the sponge and bucket, and replaced the book on the shelf.  “If Ms. Ziegenfuss catches me I’ll be cleaning the studios for a week!” she whispered under her breath even as she stowed the cleaning equipment in the closet and slipped out the side door.  
     “I’m not ducking out, I’m just taking a break.  I’m allowed to do that.”  Her words weren’t terribly reassuring, especially since she knew deep down she had no real intention of returning to school today.  Nobody stopped her of course, since practically no one was around, and it was the end of the day anyway.  The only people left on campus were the ones in after school clubs, and maybe a few of the drama students painting sets for the summer showcase.  She crossed the quad and jogged over the bridge that spanned the canal.  At the gate she looked both ways, but didn’t see the blue of Fakhir’s blazer.   
_Well I guess that’s good and bad,_  she thought.   _I don’t know what I’d say to him if he was out here, but I also don’t know where he went, and I don’t know where Rue and Mytho are either._   Her stomach rumbled again, and she pressed a hand against it, “Not now!”  
     She took off in a random direction.  If Rue and Mytho were going on a picnic, then they’d probably be in a park.  Unfortunately, Goldkrone Towne abounded with parks and green spaces, so knowing  _which_  park they’d chosen was impossible.  But the town wasn’t that big, she could search them all if she had to.  Her feet stilled as a stray thought crossed her mind,  _do I care if Fakhir is trying to break up Rue and Mytho?_ _  
_      She shouldn’t, right?  After all she had a crush on Mytho and as long as he was with Rue there wasn’t anything she could do about it.  So Rue was the competition right?  And it’s not like Rue was her friend or anything.  The pas de deux they’d danced yesterday was the most notice the senior had ever taken of her in all their time together at Gold Crown.  So why should she care what Fakhir was trying to do?  
     She wasn’t far from the Marktplatz now and the smell of fresh baked bread and doughy, sugary things dipped in cinnamon wafted to her on a warm summer breeze.  Her stomach rumbled again.  She didn’t have to go after Fakhir.  She could just walk into the Marktplatz and join Piqué and Lillie for strudel.  She  _was_ hungry after all.  
     “Ugh!” she growled out, disgusted at herself.   _I’m supposed to be Princess Tutu_ ,  _that means looking after Mytho and if that means looking after Rue as well, then that’s what I should do.  Right?_ _  
_      Something flashed in her mind and she seemed to see the Prince from the story, Mytho and not Mytho all at the same time.   
_“I have to save her.”_ _  
_“Not without me!”_  
_      The white-hot light blazed in her head and Aria’s hands flew to her eyes as if she could block it out.   _What the heck is that!?_   When she opened her eyes she couldn’t remember.  What was she thinking about before the headache?  Something about Mytho and Rue, but … it was gone.  She struggled to remember but nothing came, only a blank wall in her mind.   
     The sound of a barrel organ thrilled up the street, “Truth is a shy little thing.  If you approach it, it will hide.”  
     Aria turned in place, “Miss Edel?” She looked all around but couldn’t spot the organ grinder.  
     “Truth is a lonesome little thing.”  
     A rumble approached her, and Aria turned just in time to jump out of the way of one of the few automobiles in town.  She spun around and saw Edel standing across the street.   
     “If you move away it will give chase,” the organ grinder smiled at her.  The music stopped playing as she released the crank.  “Having doubts, are you?”  
     Aria stared up at her.   _Where did she come from?_  she wondered, aware that the very spot the organ grinder stood in had been empty only seconds ago.  “Uh?” she stammered, “I am?”   
     “Walk with me,” Edel invited, and Aria fell into step beside her.   
     “What troubles you?” the strange woman asked.  
     Aria suddenly wanted to explain the whole thing to her, after all Edel was the only one who knew she was a girl and a duck so maybe she could help.  “Well you see,” she explained as they walked. “There’s this person and there’s another person whose really good friends with that person and that person also has another good friend, but that person’s friends aren’t exactly friends with one another…” she trailed off, getting lost in her own line of thought, and looked up at Edel with a frown, “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”  
     Edel’s face was impassive.  “A mighty wind can fan flames and make treetops sway, but flames burn trees to the ground.”  
     “Uh-huh,” Aria drawled, staring at her expectantly.  When it became clear the organ grinder wasn’t going to expound upon that, Aria turned her attention to the riddle.  “So, wind and flames and trees, huh?  Does that mean they can never get along with each other?”  
     Edel offered a small shrug.  “Who’s to say?”  
     Aria crossed her arms, puzzling it out.   _So who’s the wind?  Fakhir?  Fanning flames, that’s like making something worse isn’t it?  And moving trees … but trees don’t move.  And flames burn trees to the ground, so the wind fans the flames and burns the trees down …_ “But if the wind was too strong, it would put out the fire and topple all the trees so that means…” she trailed off into silence as they kept walking.  “I don’t get it.”  
     Looking around Aria realized they’d bypassed the Marktplatz, Edel having led her up a side street and down another to a little park.  Aria glanced into the park and there they were, Rue and Mytho sitting together in the shade of a large tree.  Edel had led her right to them.  Riddles of trees and wind and flame flew out of her mind.  “Thanks Miss Edel!” she called out as she dashed away from the organ grinder and hurried toward the park.   
     Aria skidded to a stop at the edge of the park when she realized she had absolutely no good reason for interrupting their picnic.  Only then did she realize Edel hadn’t told her whether she should tell them about Fakhir or not.  When she looked back she saw that Edel and her organ were gone without a trace.  Again.   _How does she do that?  
     __Shrugging off the mystery, Aria turned her attention back to her self-appointed mission._ In the park, Mytho was sitting with his back against a tree, Rue beside him lounging on a checked blanket, her head resting in his lap.  Making the decision, Aria started toward them.   
     “Mytho,” Rue said.  
     “What?”  
     “I want to hear you say that you love me.”  
     Aria threw her hands up to cover the startled squawk that almost came out of her mouth.   _Oh what should I do, should I go back?  I should go back shouldn’t I?  I’m going back now!_   She turned and started to hurry away.  
     “Yes Rue, I love you.”  
     Aria stopped in her tracks, silence thundering in her ears as she slowly turned around.  Her heart felt frozen in her chest, a heavy weight that rooted in her place.  They couldn’t see her from where they were.  Mytho’s back was almost to her, and Rue, of course, was looking up at the leaves of the tree.  Almost unwillingly, Aria crept up to a large oak on the edge of the park, placing both hands against the rough bark and leaning into it, ears straining to hear the conversation now.  
     “Really?” Rue asked a little longingly.  
     Mytho responded readily.  “I really love you.”  
     Aria’s heart pounded back into life with a painful thump.   _I wonder what that’s like._   She thought.   _Someone saying they love you._   Of course, she was a duck.  No one ever says ‘I love you’ to a duck.  Especially an ugly duck.  
     Rue sat up suddenly, “I’m feeling thirsty.”   
     Mytho reached one hand briefly out of sight, and when it came back he held a bottle toward Rue.  She took it, her hand over his, and tilted the bottle pouring the water out onto the ground.  
_What is she doing?_   Aria wondered in awe.  
     “I think I would like to drink some water,” Rue told him firmly, “get it for me?”  
     Mytho didn’t seem to find her behavior odd.  He nodded courteously, “Yes.”  
     Still hiding behind the tree, it took Aria’s paralyzed mind a moment to realize Mytho was walking directly toward her.  She suddenly panicked, realizing that in about ten seconds he would see her, and they would know she was eavesdropping.  Eavesdropping on a _very_ private moment.  Taking advantage of a nearby hedge, Aria quickly ducked behind it.   _I’m spending a lot of time in hedges lately,_  she admonished herself even as she followed the line of shrubbery to the corner, turning down another street and fleeing away.  She turned another couple of corners, cutting between a line of houses to the edge of another park before slowing down.   
     Her cheeks were flaming, partly for almost getting caught, and partly for what she had overheard.  “Man, they really are perfect for each other,” she sighed.  “But they didn’t look like they were having very much fun out there.  If he said something like that to me…” she blushed even more furiously.   
_“I love you, Aria,”_  she imagined him saying as if he’d said it a thousand times.   _“I really do.”_ _  
_      A flash of white light stabbed her eyes and she stumbled, throwing her hands up as if to keep out the sunlight.  A scene rose behind her tightly-closed lids.  Mytho bending over her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.   _“You’ll never know how much I love you.”_ _  
_      The white light burned hotter and bled away as Aria, still walking with her eyes closed, collided into something solid.  “Excuse me,” she gasped, her eyes flying open.  She saw the back of a blue blazer, and then the person turned, and she looked up into the most beautiful pair of eyes ever.  Her mind went blank.   
     “Mytho!” she squeaked in alarm.  Quite suddenly every sensible thought fell out of her head and to her endless horror, her tongue took over for her brain.  “Oh hi, um the weather’s pretty nice today, it may be bright during the day but I’m sure it’ll be dark at night and…”   _Oh no, what am I saying?  Say something funny and walk away, just walk away!_ “Oh you know what, I really love taking walks, and you really love Rue right?”   _Oh man, what the heck am I saying???_    
     Mytho shrugged at her, “Probably.”  
     Aria stopped babbling long enough to gape at him.  “Probably?”  
     He looked down at the bottle of water in his hands.  “I guess I don’t really understand what love is.  But Rue and Fakhir are the only ones who will tell me what to do so I—”  
     “Y-you don’t understand love?” she asked, bewildered by the very possibility.  
     “I should go,” he sighed, turning away.  As he did his hand caught on the bramble of a rose vine, the sharp thorns slicing three distinct lines that shown crimson against his pale skin.  
     “Oh Mytho, your hand!” she exclaimed, jumping forward without thinking and taking his hand in hers to examine the wound.  
     He looked down with some surprise at the sight of his own blood, “Oh,” was all he said.  
     Baffled, Aria gazed up at him, “Does it hurt?”  
     “No,” he answered softly.  He cocked his head at her, “Why are you making that face?”  
     Aria barely heard his words, she was staring into his eyes and something ... something familiar …  
_“Let me wrap it for you.”_ _  
_“It’s fine really.”_  
_“It will be if you let me wrap it.”_  
_      She blinked.  Had she imagined that, or did it happen?  It happened right?  He’d cut his hand and she’d wrapped it up, they were on their way to—  
     White light seared against her eyelids burning the thought away, and she winced against it.    “You can’t feel it?” she asked him in wonder, “it should hurt, Mytho.”  
     He studied her for a silent beat, “Fakhir and Rue don’t say things like that.”  
     “Say things like what?” she asked, baffled and distracted all at the same time.  
     “They tell me what to feel, not what I  _should_  feel.”  
     His lonely eyes looked back at her and she found herself lost in them.   _It’s because he lost his heart,_  she realized.   _He can’t feel anymore.  No sadness, no fear, no pain._   She wondered what that would be like, to never be afraid or sad, to never hurt again.  And until yesterday, to never be disappointed by anyone again.  Or worse,  _be disappointed by yourself._ _  
_      She remembered her pointe class, watching the other girls and knowing she’d never be that good.  It would be better not to feel that way wouldn’t it?  Was it right for her as Princess Tutu to give that back to him—the ability to feel such pain?  Wouldn’t he be better without those pieces of his heart?  To no longer be disappointed by shattered dreams? _And never be delighted by dreams come true._ _  
_      The thought took her by surprise and Edel’s riddle resurfaced in her mind:  A mighty wind can fan flames and make treetops sway, but flames burn trees to the ground.   _But without the wind there would be no trees, and without the trees there would be no fire and without the fire there would be no wind.  Each has the ability to destroy the other, but none can exist alone.  The wind is like spirit, the trees like life, the fire like passion … like heart.  Great spirit can strengthen the heart and feed life, but hearts can break and life can end, and spirit left bereft of both is … empty.  Lifeless.  Void._  
     That’s why the Prince needed Princess Tutu to restore the shattered pieces of his heart.   
     “Then I’ll do my best,” she vowed.  
     Mytho was still staring at her, “At what?”  
     Aria blanched.  Of course, he had no knowledge of her train of thought, thank heavens, but that also made her declaration all the more out of place.  “Oh, um, that is … nothing in particular,” she stammered.  “Or rather I want to work really hard on all sorts of things and—” She realized with a shock that she was still holding Mytho’s hand.  “Oh right, your hand.  It’ll get worse if you don’t wash it properly,” and before she knew what she was doing she had washed the blood from Mytho’s hand and wrapped it with her handkerchief.  “At least it’s only a scratch.”   
     Mytho suffered her ministrations with quiet patience and it wasn’t until she was finished that she realized she’d washed his hand with the water he’d fetched for Rue, emptying the bottle.  All the blood drained out of her face when she realized what she’d done.  
     “Oh!” she exclaimed, “The water that you got for Rue!”   
     “What?”  
     But of course, he didn’t know that she’d been watching all that.  She clamped her mouth shut and handed the bottle back to him.  “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I’ll um … I’ll go get some more!”  Snatching the bottle back from him, Aria dashed off, suddenly intent on fleeing her embarrassment as fast as her feet could carry her.


	6. Das Waldhaus

**_The Hut in the Forest_ **

             

     Lazy afternoon sunlight filtered down through the leaves, dappling Rue’s face with shadow.  She leaned her back against the tree, wondering why she’d sent Mytho away on such a pointless quest.  Maybe it was to give herself some space to think.  Maybe it was more than that.  She loved Mytho, but she wasn’t an idiot.  She knew he couldn’t feel the same way for her.  Not really.  He said all the right words because she’d tell him to.  He’d fetch water for her because she’d tell him to.  Heck, he’d probably pick a fight with a pissed off porcupine if she told him to.  That was the problem.  
     She sighed and tilted her head back against the tree.  A shadow suddenly fell across her face and she opened her eyes in surprise.  A shape towered over her and it took her a moment to trace it out as a horse with someone on its back.  She squinted up at the face of the rider.   
     “Where did Mytho go?” a familiar voice asked her peremptorily.  
     Rue straightened up slightly, feeling off put and at a disadvantage sitting against a tree facing Fakhir on a horse.  But she attempted to look comfortably unconcerned, “I don’t know,” she told him carelessly.  Fakhir grated on her nerves.  Why couldn’t he get it through his head that Mytho was _hers?  
_      Fakhir glared down at her.  That was his best expression after all.  Rue wondered if she’d ever seen any other on his face.  “Don’t ever take him out without telling me,” he snapped.  
     Rue answered his ire with a pout, knowing that would only serve to irritate him further.  “Mytho doesn’t belong to you.”  
     “Nor to you,” he told her darkly.  
     Rue harrumphed and got to her feet, turning her back on him sulkily.  She wished he’d go away.  She wished they’d all go away and that Mytho would come back.  Maybe when he came back she’d have him tell her he loved her again.  Maybe this time he’d mean it.  
     Fakhir hadn’t moved.  She could hear his horse pawing the ground behind her, _and where did he get a horse anyway?_   “Mytho made mention of a feeling…”  
     Rue stopped wondering about Fakhir’s equestrian habits as her eyes flew wide and she turned to look at him over her shoulder.  “What’s that?” she asked, voice suddenly flat.  
     Fakhir didn’t bother to explain.  “Where is Mytho?” he asked again.  
     Rue turned toward him and dusted off her skirt, “He went for some water and hasn’t come back yet.”  Crossing her arms she lifted her chin and balanced on her toes, trying to make up at least some of the disparity caused between them by the horse.  
     Fakhir lifted a single brow at her.  “By himself?” he hissed.  
     “Who else would he be going with?”  She smiled smugly up at him, “This isn’t like you at all, Fakhir.  What are you so frantic about?”  
     He refused to answer her, spurring his horse forward.  
     “Wait!” she called, an uncharacteristic note of command in her voice.  If Mytho really was _feeling,_ then did that mean…?  “If you’re going to look for Mytho,” she called after him with determination, “then I’m coming with you.”

***

     It wasn’t hard to figure out where Mytho had gotten the water.  The street she was standing on was faced on one side with houses, and a large park on the other.  None of the houses were a ready source of water, since even Aria’s social ineptitude didn’t stretch so far as knocking on a stranger’s door to ask for a drink and that left the sign reading _Gastätte_ that pointed down a path into the park.  Surely water could be found at a restaurant.  
     She was quite a ways down the path when she realized someone was following her.  Turning around Aria saw Mytho right on her heels.  “Oh!” she cried out in surprise, blushing furiously.  “You don’t have to follow me.  I’ll just go get the water and be right back.  You can wait right here.”  She looked up the path and saw the restaurant sitting in a little sunny glade.  It had a steep barn roof with a weather vane turning lazily atop it, and window boxes overflowing with flowers.  There was a small deck fronting the restaurant complete with chairs and tables, but it appeared to be empty.  “Wait,” she paused, “is it open?”  
     “Over there,” he pointed to a sign hanging off the trellis next to the deck that read _Geöffnet_.  
     “I guess so,” she shrugged and walked up to the restaurant with Mytho trailing her.  Two doors led into the restaurant, one clearly for public use over which was painted a fanciful grapevine and large bold letters.  “Eberhild,” Aria read out, her hand upon the gate, “I wonder if that’s the restaurant’s name?”   
     Despite the sign, the place looked abandoned.  Opening the gate she walked up onto the deck and approached the nearer door, knocking curiously.  “Excuse me?” she called out, her voice echoing emptily.  
     There was a beat of silence, and then a heavy _thud_ on the other side of the door.  Aria jumped back in alarm as a large eye suddenly framed itself in the door’s small diamond-shaped window.  “Yes?” a woman’s voice answered her.  
     Still taken aback, Aria hesitated.  “Um, this is a restaurant, right?”  
     Another beat of silence.  The eye facing her blinked twice, and then the door suddenly burst open revealing a buxom lady with dark hair piled high on her head under a white lace cap.  Judging by her grease stained apron, she was probably the cook.  “Yes!” she declared happily, advancing on Aria with exuberant welcome.  
     Aria retreated instinctively, tripped over her own feet, and fell into Mytho who caught her almost as if out of habit and steadied her.  
     “One moment, please!” the woman exclaimed, and then the door slammed shut.  
     Aria traded looks with Mytho.  “That was weird, right?” she asked him.  
     He gazed back at her impassively, “Weird?”  
     From inside the restaurant all manner of clamor could be heard, and then the other door slammed open and the woman reappeared.  Aria pirouetted around to face her in surprise.  The woman’s ample girth all but filled the doorway, her wide eyes, and an even wider smiling face lit up like the sun at the sight of them.  “Thank you for waiting!” she enthused.  “Welcome!” she shifted slightly, making way for them to enter.  “I am the owner and chef here.  Eberhild.”  
     On the off-chance that wasn’t an esoteric way to say ‘come in’, Aria assumed Eberhild was the name of the woman _and_ the restaurant.  Eberhild beckoned to them and Aria had no choice but to walk inside.  Like the exterior, the interior of the restaurant was entirely devoid of customers, though several tables were set up in the small front room of what was once only a house.  A fireplace filled one wall, and a pair of windows the other.  Aria looked around the empty little dining area uncertainly.  
     “How did you find out about this place?” Eberhild asked, leading them over the uneven wood plank floor to one of the empty tables.  “Did a friend tell you?”  
     “Uh, no,” Aria replied, her eyes grazing over the warm little dining room.  It seemed like a welcoming place despite its lack of customers.  
     “Then did you go out of your way to find it?” the restauranteur pressed.  
     “Oh no,” she waved her hand dismissively, “not at all.”  
     Eberhild’s back stiffened, “It wasn’t pure chance then, was it?”  
     Aria felt suddenly uncomfortable.  _I kind of get why there aren’t any customers if this is how she treats everyone who comes by._ “Well yes,” she admitted a bit sheepishly.  
     Eberhild spun around sharply, bending down so her face was level with Aria’s and stepping so close the girl could smell the garlic on her breath.  Aria was suddenly _very_ uncomfortable.  “How very splendid!” the woman exclaimed.  “I’ve never had a customer like that before.  Now please, sit down.”  
     “Oh, ma’am,” Aria broke in quickly, shaking her head.  “I’m not a customer.”  
     “Not … a customer?” The woman asked, clearly confused.   
     “I just came for some water,” she explained quickly, holding out the empty bottle.  
     Eberhild straightened up quickly.  “Just … for some water?”  
     She seemed so disappointed Aria felt truly awful.  “I’m so sorry…”  
     The woman didn’t seem to hear her.  A strange light caught in her eyes and then it was like someone set reset in her brain.  “You’re hungry aren’t you?” she demanded.  Aria’s stomach rumbled at the question.  Eberhild smiled at the sound, “Then why not have a nice meal while you’re here?”  
     “What?” Aria stared at her with consternation, “But I don’t have any money!”  
     “It’s fine!” the woman gushed pushing Aria toward a chair, “It doesn’t matter!”  
_It doesn’t matter?  How can it not matter?  This is a restaurant.  Restaurants don’t normally just give food away._ A sudden heat burned against Aria’s heart.  Distracted she looked down to see the pendant as it flashed.   
     “Oh yes,” Eberhild clamored, heading off toward the kitchen, “I just made some shrimp paté!”  
     But Aria wasn’t really listening to her anymore.  Her attention was riveted by the pendant.  _It glowed just now, does that mean she has one of the shards with her?_   She looked up to see Mytho slide into a chair at the empty table and it suddenly occurred to her that she was alone in the room with him.  No Rue.  No Fakhir.  And apparently they were about to have a meal together.   
     Her face went red.  “Um, don’t you just want to get some water for Rue?” she asked uncertainly, standing awkwardly by the table.  
     “Okay,” he agreed.  
     He started to rise but as he did Eberhild came hurtling out of the kitchen with her hands full of plates.  Somehow she managed to push Mytho back into his chair, shove Aria toward hers, and place the plates on the table without spilling a single drop of gravy on the snowy tablecloths.  “Now please help yourselves to it!” she invited, smiling that same wide smile that was starting to give Aria a creepy feeling up her spine.  
     Aria’s stomach rumbled again and she looked at the steaming matzo ball soup in front of her.  But her mind was still on Rue.  “Uh, ma’am, could you just get us so—”  
     “Some more?” she cut the girl off.  “You’re right, this is hardly enough.”  Eberhild hurried quickly back to the kitchen.  
     “Wait!” Aria called out, “that’s not what I meant!”  She looked over at Mytho in dismay.  He’d already picked up his spoon and was digging into the soup.  
     Aria looked down at the bowl in front of her and had to admit it did kind of look good.  And after all, she was hungry and it _did_ smell delicious.  And the urgency that usually accompanied the throbbing pendant was absent.  Maybe she had just imagined it. _Well we are here, and maybe I’ll just have a little bit and when Eberhild comes back I’ll ask her for some water and then we can go._    
     Satisfied with her decision, Aria picked up her fork and knife and cut off a piece of matzo ball.  She bit into it and almost choked on the food, surprised not by the flavor but by the temperature.  It was ice cold.  She put her hand against the bowl, convinced that she must be mistaken, but it too was as cold as ice.  Bewildered, she looked over the other dishes Eberhild had brought.  Taking her fork she cut off a piece of chicken and nibbled on it.  Then a bite of fried potatoes, and another of roast.  Each was as cold as the first, the meat almost frozen as her teeth crunched on crystals of ice.  Meanwhile, Mytho had finished his soup and had moved on to a plate of bratwurst.  Clearly he didn’t seem to notice anything wrong.  Curious, Aria tried the bratwurst.  Cold.  
     Eberhild reappeared again, another plate in her hand.  “Rainbow trout meuniêre!” she announced.  She set the steaming plate in front of Aria, and Aria could hear the fish still sizzling.  _This one must be warm._   Eagerly she cut off a piece of fish, but like the rest of the dishes, it froze in her mouth.   
     Their hostess seemed not to notice, however, as she kept bringing dishes.  Each one looked perfectly normal, but each like the one before it was as cold as ice.  Aria was starting to feel cold herself, unsurprised to realize she was shivering, her breath fogging before her face.  She longed for the jacket she’d left in the janitorial closet. Although it was a warm summer evening outside, inside it almost felt like winter and she found herself wishing that there was a fire in the fireplace.  While Eberhild was in the kitchen, Aria leaned across the table toward Mytho, “Hey, don’t you think something’s strange here?”   
     “Like what?” he asked, eating quietly.  
     “Like why all the dishes she brings out are cold.  Or why she’s feeding us for free!?”  _Not to mention that we’re practically sitting in an icebox!  
_      “Who knows,” he shrugged.  
     Aria studied his blank expression closely.  _I see,_ she realized.  _Mytho can’t even tell when something’s strange!  
_      “Here’s dessert!” Eberhild pronounced, placing an ice cream sundae between them on the table.  
     Aria stared at it in consternation.  _She has_ got _to be kidding with this, right?  
_      “And that concludes the first course!” the chef announced, “Next up course two!”  
     “Course two?” Aria squeaked.  She tried to grab for Eberhild and missed as the woman dashed back to the kitchen.  _Right, that’s enough of that_.Aria threw her napkin down on her plate and stood up, “Excuse me,” she said through clenched teeth.  
     “Sure,” Mytho shrugged, still eating the icy food.  
     Aria followed the woman through the back door of the restaurant and found herself in a long hall.  To her right was the restroom, and just a few paces down was a partially open door.  Aria could hear Eberhild’s voice inside.  The woman seemed to be talking to someone.  Interest piqued, Aria crept forward.   
     “Yes, that’s right, it’s been so long since we had a customer…”  
_What?_ Aria crept closer, curiosity overcoming her better sense.   
     “Our first customers in a long time, and they’re eating so much.  But I have to have them eat more…”  
     Tiptoeing now, Aria peered around the lintel.  Eberhild sat on a stool, rhythmically sharpening a knife beside a suspiciously large ham.  “Who will taste better?” she asked, and Aria realized with a start that she wasn’t talking to anyone, “you, or you?” she giggled manically.  
     Aria flattened herself against the wall.  “Who will taste better?” she gasped.  _What is going on here?_   Around her neck the pendant burned urgently, and Aria felt the sudden impulse to flee.  _The pendant glowed before when I took the heart shard from Annette.  But it also glowed when Mytho was in danger.  So is there a shard here or danger?_    
     Her eyes focused on the view through the window in the opposite wall.  Outside in a little yard beneath the shade of an overhanging oak was an upright stone tablet driven into the ground, with the letters OTTO engraved upon it and nothing else.  Already cold inside and out, Aria felt her heart freeze in her chest at the sight.  “A gr-gr-grave?”   
     Her fingers gripped the window sill, knuckles white in terror as she stared pale-faced at the tribute.  _It doesn’t mean anything,_ she tried to assure herself, though the thought did little to calm her racing pulse.  _Lots of people have family graveyards._   _It doesn’t mean anything._ But the grave, and Eberhild’s words _“Who will taste better?”_ sent a chill straight through her.  
_At this rate I’ll be course three!  Roast Duck!  
_      She swallowed hard and closed a fist around her burning pendant.  _I don’t care what happens to me, but I have to save Mytho!_   She hastened back to the table where Mytho was still placidly eating.  Oh what could she say to convince him?   
     “I know a story that goes like this,” she began, leaning both hands on the table as if by her very posture she could relay the urgency of their situation.  “A brother and sister lost in the forest find a gingerbread house, then a kind old woman appears and serves them all sorts of food but she was really planning to fatten up the two and eat them afterwards!”  
     “Really?” he asked, unconcerned, shoveling more food in his mouth.  
_Oh no, it’s no good!  Mytho doesn’t understand he’s in danger!_   “We’ve got to get out of here!” she exclaimed, grabbing at his arm to drag him with her if she had to.  She stepped backward, tripped over a loose floorboard, and hit her head on the mantle.  Pain burst behind her eyes and she went tumbling toward the ground.  She reached out blindly, snagging at something on the mantle that slid off and hit her again.  Starbursts exploded in her head.   When she opened her eyes she was looking up at Mytho who was still seated at the table, but looking down at her with that blank expression.  
     “Are you okay?” he asked.  
     “Yeah I’m having the day of my life,” she mumbled, pushing herself up onto her elbows.  She looked down at the thing that had hit her in the head.  It was a little silver box lying open on the floor amidst a scattered pile of note cards.  “What’s this?” she muttered, rolling over onto her knees and reaching for the box.  They were recipes, she realized.  Inside the box’s lid was a photograph that showed Eberhild as a younger woman standing beside a tall handsome man.   
     A cold voice suddenly split the room.  “What are you doing?”  
     Aria startled to her feet and spun to see Eberhild standing behind her.  The woman still held the knife she’d been sharpening.  “Oh!” she exclaimed, her eyes on the knife, “I um, I was thinking of going soon.”  
     Eberhild suddenly turned hostile, gripping the knife like a weapon.  “No, you can’t.  I’ve still got my dishes to cook!”  
     “Dishes?” she gasped.  
     “More must be eaten,” Eberhild shouted at her, the knife upraised.  “Much more!”  
     “Eating more for what?” Aria demanded even as she retreated several steps.   
     But the woman’s face darkened into a scowl and she advanced on Aria.  “You’ll stay until you’re done!”  
     “Why should I stay when I’m already full!” she cried back.  
     Eberhild suddenly froze, her face going still.  The knife fell to her side.  “I see.”  She turned to Mytho, “Well then, how about you?  You still want more to eat, don’t you?”  
     Aria jumped quickly between them, “He’s already full too!”  
     “Probably,” Mytho answered her at the same time.  
_No!_   Eberhild’s hand suddenly closed around Aria’s arm with bruising force and Aria found herself being half-dragged, half carried to the door.  “Stop it!” she cried out, struggling futilely to escape the woman’s iron grip.  Then she was being cast out the open door, her feet catching on a loose board in the deck, and she fell flat on her face knocking the breath out of her.  Behind her the door slammed shut.  
     For the span of a heartbeat Aria lay there, processing what had happened.  And then panic woke up inside her and she sprang to her feet, “Mytho!” she cried out.  
     There was no answer.   
     She flew to the door and grasped the handle, tugging at it with all her strength but it wouldn’t give.  She pounded on the door frantically, “Open up!  Please!  Open up!”  
     Eberhild’s voice came from the other side, sounding hollow and distant.  “If you won’t eat you can go home!”  
     A cold chill crept down her spine while the pendant burned against her breastbone.  Until now it had been as cold as the food, but now it came alive, pulsing and throbbing against her chest.  Tears stung at Aria’s eyes.  “Mytho!” she cried, but there was no response.  The burning sting of the pendant against her heart turned to fire, and the panicked urgency swelling inside of her turned to fury.  “Oh you messed with the wrong girl!” she exclaimed, gripping the pendant in one tight fist.   
     Concentrating with all her might, Aria conjured up again that _need_ that allowed her to transform into Princess Tutu, and for the second time through conscious will she stepped through that mythic boundary between story and reality.  
     Vines suddenly burst out of the flowerbox that hung off the railing behind her.  Tutu raised her hand and they sprang forward, growing up the door and around the handle and through the lock, expanding until the lock burst with a snap.  Tutu sprang forward in a grand jeté as the vines pushed the door open before her.   
     “Meal time is over!” she declared, landing between Eberhild and Mytho protectively.   
     Eberhild gaped at her incredulously, “Who are you?” she demanded.  
     “I am Princess Tutu,” she announced, even as the vines she controlled continued to grow into the room.  They twined around Mytho, bearing him safely outside and away from Eberhild and her knife.   
     “My customer!” Eberhild cried racing outside after him, “Give me back my customer!”  
     Tutu sprang between them again, her arms thrown out wide at her sides.  The vines grew up, forming small trees and a protective nest in which a curious Mytho looked down at the confrontation.  Standing before Tutu, Eberhild brandished the knife, but Tutu stood her ground.  If she had to, she would throw herself _onto_ that knife before she’d let the woman hurt Mytho.  And then her eyes focused on the thing she hadn’t seen before.  Standing behind Eberhild, its arms around her shoulders, was the faintly glowing insubstantial form of a heart shard.   
_So it wasn’t because of danger!_   Tutu realized even as Eberhild dropped the knife to the ground, her face screwed up in anguish.   
     “Why are you doing this!” the woman shouted at her.  
     Tutu felt a little piece of herself break at the desperate longing in the woman’s voice.  Her fury melted into pity.  She rose up en pointe and swirled her hands overhead in the mime for dance.  “Please come dance with me, Miss Eberhild.”  Magic flowed from her, soothing, calming, but it did little to relieve their hostess’s distress.  
     “I am not a dancer.” Eberhild retorted.  “My job is not to dance!  My job is to cook and to have my customers eat my cooking.”  
     Tutu bourreed forward, stalling for time as she tried to puzzle out the emotion at the root of Eberhild’s distress.  “What do you hope to gain by forcing him to eat?”  
     “I want him to keep eating more and more!”  
     “Yes but why?”  
     Eberhild stared at her like she was mad.  “What do you mean why?  I want him to eat lots and lots.  I want my dear customer to have his fill.  Because having your fill of every kind of delicious food is pure happiness…”  
     Tutu’s mouth dropped open in awe as she saw the heart shard speaking along with Eberhild word for word.  She held her hands out to it, trying another tactic.  “Come,” she beckoned.  “This person’s heart is not where you belong.  Let’s go back.”  
     “I’m not letting him go anywhere!” Eberhild cried.  Quiet suddenly she raised a fist and with that motion summoned a strange dark power.   
     A sudden chill frosted the air and Tutu could again see her breath puffing in icy smoke.   
     “Stay away!”  
     Once again Tutu felt that tug as another force took command of her own power.  The soothing, calming magic she’d been trying to use on Eberhild turned suddenly chaotic and cold.  The day was abruptly dark, and goose-pimples sprang up all across Tutu’s arms and shoulders as the temperature plummeted.  _Is it the heart shard that lets her do this?_ “Ms. Eberhild!” She cried out over the force of her own turned magic.  “What feeling is that shard?”   
     Eberhild didn’t answer her.  Instead she retreated, taking the shard with her, stepping back into the net of vines Tutu had summoned.  The cold closed around those vines, frost and ice withering them where they stood, and they formed a sort of protective cage around the cook and the heart shard, its arms wrapped around her waist. “I just want him to enjoy my cooking.  That’s what a restaurant is for!” she called back on an icy wind that seemed to spring up all around.  
     Tutu was starting to feel numb.  She looked over at Mytho and saw his head drop to his chest, eyes closed.  His face had taken on a bluish cast.  “Oh no,” she breathed in horror.  She tried to summon her magic, to make the vines carry him further away from the terrible cold emanating from Eberhild, but the vines had withered and nothing would grow in the winter the woman created.  
_If I don’t act quickly we’re both going to freeze!_   She realized.  She turned to the woman before her desperately, _the flowing and formless…_ She tried to reach out to the water flowing through the ground, but it too was frozen.  _If I can’t use my magic I have to find another way._   “Then why has your cooking become so bland and cold?” she entreated, seeking about for a solution or escape, “Why would you force your customer to eat such a meal?  Why would you lock him up?”  She realized she was approaching Eberhild, braving the terrible cold.  Her skirts were stiff with ice, her skin as white as the frost on the vines and she could no longer feel her fingers or toes.  With effort, she kept her teeth from chattering.  “I want you to tell me what it is you’re feeling Ms. Eberhild.”  
     Eberhild stared down at her from where she stood inside her thorny cage.  “What I’m … feeling…”  
     Tutu stretched out into an arabesque, a few of the vines around her pricking up with interest as she managed to master some small measure of the power chilling the air.  Flowers blossomed around her and she stretched out her hand, the tips of her fingers blue and frosty.  She smiled at the woman gently, “Come dance with me, Miss Eberhild.”   
     The woman’s eyes went impossibly wide.  Ever so slowly, she reached out and took Tutu’s hand.  
     Tutu’s smile widened and she pulled Eberhild out of the thorny cage.  She lifted her hand and Eberhild turned under their outstretched arms as Tutu spun her magic.  The frost began to melt.  In her mind she saw the woman’s memories, memories of Eberhild and her husband opening their restaurant together as newlyweds.  
     “Yes,” the restauranteur gasped in surprise, “Back then I felt a little uncertainty but the rest of it was bliss, I could have burst with happiness.  A warm atmosphere, happy conversations, delicious food.”  
     “What a wonderful home,” Tutu murmured gently, “A wonderful couple.”  
     Eberhild smiled, recalling those times as she waltzed with Tutu across the glade of dried dead grass.  Beneath their feet the forest floor became alive again, growing things turned green and flowered.  “I’d set my dish next to his and he would say, ‘Who will taste better, you or you?’ He would always tease me and point at mine, ‘You still have a long way to go.’  But that was happiness for me.”  
     Tutu gasped.  _That’s what those words meant!  
_      A sadness clouded Eberhild’s eyes.  “But there’s no one left to tease me when I ask about it.  I have recipes but the person who cooked them is no longer here.”  Tears filled her eyes and froze to her face, “I’m so lonely.  So I wanted to have my customers stay as long as possible.  I could at least have that.”  
     Tutu looked past Eberhild at the heart shard with sudden understanding, “You’re the feeling of loneliness aren’t you?”  
     “The feeling of loneliness…” it spoke.  
_Bitter disappointment … loneliness._ She gave a little sad sigh.  “Yes, but this isn’t where you belong.” She held out her hand, summoning it instinctively to her.  
     “I’m sorry,” the heart shard spoke to Eberhild, “but I must go.”  
     “Wait,” the woman cried out in a panic, pulling away from Tutu.  The slowly rising temperature dropped again.  “Don’t go, please!  I’ll be all alone again!”  
_Alone._   The word struck a terrible chord inside Tutu because before Mytho and the pendant that’s exactly what she had been.  What right had she to force that on another person?  Tears stung her eyes as she replied.  “Don’t worry.  You won’t be left alone, Miss Eberhild.  Because you have the recipes left by the one you love.”  She bent down to retrieve the box their waltzing steps had drawn them to and held it to the restauranteur.  It felt like such a small comfort in her hands, but it radiated with a glowing warmth.  “Lots of dishes are waiting right here, wanting to be made.  A gift left to you by the one who loved you.”  _The power to turn loneliness into strength._  
     Eberhild’s eyes shown with tears, she took the box and hugged it to her chest as the tears spilled over.  “My dear Otto!  I’ll make this a wonderful restaurant again.  Please help me, my dear.”  
     The warmth of the recipe box radiated out, washing over Eberhild, washing over the glade.  Light returned and brought with it the welcome warmth of the summer air.  Tutu retreated a step even as she made the vines grow around Eberhild, bearing her gently back into her home while she extracted the shard of loneliness from Eberhild’s broken heart.  It shown in her hand, a bright little jewel that glowed with its own light.  
     Tutu turned to the bed of vines where Mytho still slept and released the magic that held him there.  He woke up dazedly and stood, shaking his head as he gazed around at the now-normal glade.  
     “My prince,” she told him mournfully, holding out the shining shard, “This belongs to you.”  She held the jewel toward him, and with one last blinking gleam, it returned to its rightful place.

***

     Mytho watched, fascinated, as the bright jewel floated off the princess’s hand and soared toward him.  Once again he felt that sharp tug, and once again the jewel like a bead on a string, slid straight toward the center of his chest.  It burned against him, and then burned _through_ his clothes and skin and he grabbed at his chest out of reflex as the sensation sliced into him.  But it wasn’t the pain of the burning gem that cut him, it was the flash in his mind of something he _should_ remember, but couldn’t…  
_Bright blood blossoming against white skin…  
__Silent tears growing cold...  
__“Don’t leave me…”  
__The light fading out of her eyes…  
__A face … a face he should know …  
_      But when Mytho opened his eyes the only face he saw was that of Princess Tutu.  Large, luminous blue eyes smiled at him and she tipped her head, bowing in reverencé, and turned to go.  Something tugged at his heart that had nothing to do with any jewel and he reached out, not wanting her to leave him.  His hand closed around her wrist.  She gasped and turned around, staring at him in awe.  
     There was something … something about her he felt he should know.  “I’d like to thank you, Princess Tutu,” he murmured.  
     A slow smile spread across her face in wonder, and something inside him responded immediately to that smile.  Gently she slipped her hand out of his, curtsied again, and flitted away.  
     “Wait…” he whispered, a strange pain slicing through him.  The girl—her face—it couldn’t be…  
     “Mytho!” a sharp voice rang out and he turned to see Fakhir leading a horse up the path to the restaurant.  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, gazing around at the little clearing distastefully.  
     Mytho barely heard him.  He pressed a hand to his chest trying to recapture that feeling.  An aching emptiness seemed to fill him—not the same emptiness as before that was just a bland blankness—but an odd self-consuming hollow throbbing that seemed to grow out from the center of his chest like someone had reached inside him and ripped out something too precious to lose.  
     “Hey!” Fakhir snapped when he didn’t answer.  
     He turned to his friend, registering the question he’d asked.  “Nothing.”  
     Fakhir’s green eyes narrowed as he looked for hidden meaning in Mytho’s words.  “What happened Mytho?” he asked, enunciating each word clearly.  
     He gazed past Fakhir into nothingness, “Princess Tutu, she appeared and…” he curled his fingers around, remembering the softness of her hand in his.  “She touched me.”  
     “Princess Tutu!?” Fakhir scoffed.  
     “Oh this is ridiculous,” a familiar voice rang out and Mytho looked up in surprise to see Rue with Fakhir.  The girl looked irate.  “That’s just a story.”  
     “A story?” he asked, quietly confused.  
     “Though blessed with beauty, cleverness, and strength,” Rue recited, “she’s still a princess fated never to be with her prince.  When she confesses her love she turns into a speck of light and vanishes.”  
     Mytho looked away, that awful hollowness growing in his chest again.  He didn’t think he wanted Princess Tutu to vanish.  In fact, he knew it as he had never known anything before.  
_That face … it couldn’t be … her?_


	7. Giselle

**_The Jilted Bride_ **

****

     Fakhir was diligent.  For years he’d watched over and protected Mytho.  He’d trained until his body ached, until his hands were bloodied, until he couldn’t rise up and fight anymore.  He’d studied into the long dark hours of the night, gone days without sleep to keep watch, to study and train.  His devotion to training had paid off in other aspects of his life—his spot as the top danseur at school, his class ranking—but none of those were why he’d done it.  He’d devoted his entire being to protecting Mytho from whatever invisible forces might threaten, but now it felt like it was all slipping away.  All night he’d stood watch at the window while Mytho slept, pacing the floor restlessly playing and replaying the scene in the woods over again.   
 _Princess Tutu._ That’s what Mytho had said.  _Could it really be her?_   But that was ridiculous.  Princess Tutu was less than a footnote in the Prince’s story, a character mentioned in only the briefest of passings.  But that’s what he’d said, _Princess Tutu._ Fakhir remembered the chaos at the gazebo, the marks on the ground like rippling water.  The same marks that he’d seen outside Eberhild’s.  If it was her, if Princess Tutu was real, she was more powerful than he’d possibly imagined.  Possibly more powerful than he was prepared to contend with.  _Is Princess Tutu trying to restore Mytho’s heart?  
_      Fakhir cast a sideways look at his roommate.  Mytho was standing by the window now as he shrugged on his uniform jacket, watching the shadows creep back over the courtyard as the sun rose over Goldkrone Towne.  He’d been acting strangely all morning.  _What is on his mind?_ Fakhir found himself wondering.  He’d never had to worry about such a thing before.  He’d known that _nothing_ was on Mytho’s mind.  That nothing ever could be.  But lately, it was all he thought about.  
     “Who are you?” Fakhir heard Mytho speak softly to himself, “Are you calling me?”  
     Fakhir started at the words.  He glared suspiciously at Mytho’s turned back.  “What’s with that look?” he scoffed, walking over to join his roommate at the window.  
     Mytho turned to face him blankly, “What look?”  
 _No, not blankly._   Fakhir’s eyes narrowed, noting the expression on his friend’s face.  And for the first time there _was_ an expression.  _He looks … lost._   “What were you thinking about?” he growled suddenly, startling even himself at the harshness of his voice.  
     “What?”   
     “Just now,” Fakhir took a step closer, speaking slowly and carefully.  “What were you thinking about?”  
     There it was again, that faraway look in Mytho’s eyes.  “Someone, someone’s calling me.  I don’t know who it is, but I feel like I can understand what that person’s feeling.”  
     Fakhir clenched his teeth together, hands curled into fists at his sides.  
     “The heartache,” Mytho went on, “deep down, the desire to see someone and talk to them.  Feelings that I have too.”  He focused on Fakhir again, a strange confusion in his eyes.  “Could this possibly be what it feels like to be lonely?”  
     Fakhir’s mouth dropped open in surprise.  _What it feels like to be lonely?_   All his worst suspicions were suddenly confirmed.  _Mytho_ is _regaining his heart._ And just like that all of his training snapped into place.  Anger surged through him, a red-hot rage mixed with an intangible fear he quickly quashed down and ignored.  Reaching out, he grasped Mytho and dragged him away from the window.  
     With more force than he’d intended, Fakhir shoved Mytho into the mirror that covered one wall.  “Look at this face!” he shouted, securing Mytho’s chin in one hand and forcing him to acknowledge his own reflection.  “I hate this face and its feelings.  This wretched face wallowing in its loneliness.  Is it fun recalling such emotions?” he growled, “Does it feel good Mytho?”  
 _I have to make him forget.  I have to keep him from restoring his heart._  
     Mytho’s eyes fluttered closed.  “No.”  
     Somehow that single word of confirmation did more to fuel Fakhir’s rage than any long denial could.  Fakhir spun Mytho around and pinned him against the mirror with superior strength.  Strength he’d earned through his diligent training.  Training for precisely this moment.  “Exactly!” he exclaimed severely.  “You have no need of a heart, Mytho.  None whatsoever.  If you were to regain such a thing…” Fakhir cut himself off suddenly, sucking in a quick breath.  
     “If I were?”   
     A memory touched his mind, distant and dim but unforgettable.  A terrible pain, the rush of black feathers, red eyes burning like fire.  He shut it away.  “Don’t fall for such a fool’s hope.  Got it?”  
     “Yes.”  
     “Say it louder!” Fakhir roared.  
     “Understood.”  Mytho’s eyes went blank, “I will do as you say Fakhir.”  
     “Good,” Fakhir glowered down at him.  “That’s how it should be.”  He released Mytho suddenly, the taste of bile in his mouth.  But the rage remained.  He wasn’t sure if he was angry at Mytho, or at himself.  Fakhir turned his back, hating everything he was for what he’d just done.

***

_Though blessed with beauty, cleverness, and strength, she’s still a princess fated never to be with her prince.  When she confesses her love she turns into a speck of light and vanishes...  
_ _Confesses her love she turns into a speck of light and vanishes…  
_ _A speck of light and vanishes…  
_ _Speck of light…  
_ _Vanishes…  
_      Aria sat bolt upright from her nightmare covered in a cold sweat, her heart racing in her chest, Rue’s words still echoing in her ears.  She collapsed back against her pillows with a moan and pulled the covers up over her head.  _That’s right,_ she remembered, _Princess Tutu’s in the story too and I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore._   And everyone, it seemed, knew the story except her.   
     She groaned again when she heard the bell ring.  It was a Saturday, but thanks to her luck she had to go to school anyway to serve her detention.  And all she really wanted to do was hide under the covers until she could forget she’d ever heard about Princess Tutu.  But with a sigh she threw the covers back and got dressed.  
     Since it was a weekend, she reached for her mustard yellow skirt instead of her school uniform, and the soft ivory sweater which made up her only other set of clothes.  There was a knock on her door and Aria looked at it in surprise.  
     “You’re going to be late for detention,” Piqué’s voice crowed from the other side.  
     Aria smiled despite herself and threw open the door.  “Thank you for reminding me,” she retorted.  
     Piqué just grinned and flounced inside.  She had an armful of clothes, “Lillie put these together last night, in case you finish in time to go to the fire festival tomorrow.”  She dumped the clothes gracelessly on Aria’s trunk.  “You ready to go to school?”  
     Aria’s eyebrows went up, “You’re coming with me?”  
     “We both are!” Lillie sang out suddenly, also entering with an armful of clothes.  “I like the pink dress,” she said, adding her armful to the pile and holding a frilly pink garment up to Aria’s shoulders.  She made a face, “On the other hand, pink is a terrible color for you.”   
     “Come on, she’ll never get to go if she’s late,” Piqué chided, pushing them both out the door.  
     “Thanks,” Aria grinned at them, “But you really don’t have to keep me company.”  
     “Of course we do!” Lillie chimed in, “you never would have gotten detention if we hadn’t been talking to you.”  
 _I’m not so sure about that,_ she thought ruefully.  
     “Besides, they’re starting rehearsals for Giselle today,” Piqué spoke up, “and Rue’s supposed to be dancing the lead.  I don’t want to miss it.”  
     They headed to the ballet school together, letting themselves in the side entrance, and though Aria knew she should get the bucket and mop and start cleaning, she was a little curious about watching the rehearsal too.  So instead of getting started on her chores, she snuck up to the gallery with Piqué and Lillie.  The practice was already in full swing by the time they arrived.  
     Together they sat as close to the edge as possible, peering through the railing down at the rehearsal.  Rue was at the center of the floor performing Giselle’s solo from Act One while Ms. Ziegenfuss, their choreographer looked on and called out instructions.  
     “Impressive,” Piqué whispered in awe.  
     “Truly a prodigy,” Lillie agreed quietly.  
     Aria leaned forward, a wistful hand against her cheek, “Will a day ever come when I can dance like that too?”  
     “Whoa,” Piqué’s eyes bugged out and her head swung around, “You finally got your head on straight.”  
     “What a wildly whimsical dream,” Lillie burst out.   
 _It’s not_ that _far out of reach._   Aria ground her teeth together.  
     “First we’ve got to get you off of probation,” Piqué promised her.  
     Aria’s gaze drifted back toward Rue, but when she looked down she didn’t see the ballerina.  She saw Princess Tutu.  _Why is it that when I’m Princess Tutu I can dance any step that I want, but when I’m me I trip over my own feet walking?  Is Princess Tutu me?  Or is she someone else?_   She saw herself reflected back in the mirror at every practice, awkward and uncoordinated.  Bad turnout, bad feet, bad carriage, bad balance, _bad everything._   She sighed, _I’m just a girl in the probationary class._ Another image rose unbidden in her head, a mottled grey duckling attempting an arabesque.  _Rather more to the point, I’m just a duck.  
_      Rue was moving across the floor now in a series of balloné en pointe.  Aria noticed for the first time that the ballerina was gritting her teeth, sweat stood out on her forehead as she struggled with the step.  When she stepped into a series of twirling chaînes, her expression betrayed her own discomfort.  
     “You’re straining for it, Miss Kerrane,” the ballet mistress called out to her, “let it flow.”  
     Aria’s eyes widened.  _Something’s wrong, why is she struggling?  
_      Rue lifted into an arabesque, her arms visibly dipping as she tried to maintain her center and then—  
     “Watch out!” Aria cried reflexively even as the ballerina’s ankle folded beneath her.  
     Rue went tumbling to the ground and Ms. Ziegenfuss spun furiously.  “Who’s there?” the instructor called out.  
     Piqué and Lillie ducked out of sight leaving Aria sitting at the railing alone.  She smiled nervously down, her face reddening.  “Um, I’m just here to clean the studio?”  
     Ms. Ziegenfuss glowered, then turned back to Rue.  “Are you alright Miss Kerrane?” she demanded.  
     The other girls were helping her to her feet.  “I’m fine,” she assured the instructor, “I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”  
     Outside the bell intoned the hour.  “Very well then,” Ms. Ziegenfuss announced, clapping her hands.  “We’ll pick this up next time.  You’re all dismissed.”  She turned back toward the gallery then, “And as for you, Miss Arima.  I’d like to have a word with you about the job you left undone in the small studio yesterday.”  
     “Yes ma’am,” she sighed morosely turning away to descend from the gallery.  She noticed in passing that Piqué and Lillie had disappeared entirely.  
     Ms. Ziegenfuss glowered down at Aria when she joined the instructor on the floor.  “I will do you a favor this once,” she spoke in a soft but dangerous voice, “And I will not report your behavior to Mr. Catt.  However, if you duck out of your chores _ever_ again, he will hear of this and more from me.  Do you understand?”  
     Aria bit her lip, “Yes Ms. Ziegenfuss.”  
     “Right then,” the instructor pointed imperiously at the stairs, “You know where the mop is.”

***

     Rue left the morning rehearsal by herself, walking slowly away from the ballet school.  She’d wanted to dance Giselle all her life, she’d practiced for hours when she tried out for the part in the summer showcase, and it was the happiest day of her life when Mr. Catt informed her she’d be dancing the lead.  The cherry on top of it all was when Mr. Catt gave the role of Albrecht to Mytho instead of Fakhir.  Mytho was technically superior of course, even if Fakhir was the favored male lead at the Academy.  She preferred Fakhir in the role of Hilarion anyway.Hilarion dies _.  
_      All Rue wanted was to be on stage with Mytho dancing that grand pas de deux.  _So why then,_ she wondered, _was I so out of step in practice today?_ She couldn’t believe her own lack of focus, and it left a sour taste in her mouth.  The other girls had pestered her, nagging her to tell them what was wrong.  But how could she possibly explain?  _Mytho._   It all came back to him, didn’t it?  All night she kept seeing that look on his face, that almost impossible longing he’d never worn for her.  _“She … touched me.”  
_      If anyone else had said that about anyone else, Rue might have erupted into a fit of giggles at the illicit implications of the statement.  But Mytho had said it, and Mytho was incapable of innuendo.  And he’d said it about _Princess Tutu._   The implication implicit in _that_ was unmistakable.  Princess Tutu was supposed to be some sort of fairy spirit, not of this world.  Not _in_ this world.  But what he’d said… _she_ touched _me.  
_      “Idiot,” she muttered to herself.  “It isn’t real anyway.”  It _can’t_ be real.  _I won’t let it be._ She looked up then and saw him, standing by the swan fountain as if waiting for her.  She knew he wasn’t.  She knew he was there for rehearsal the same as she was.  He’d been working with Mr. Catt and Fakhir all morning, but suddenly she didn’t care about Giselle and ballet.  Suddenly she just wanted to escape with him somewhere.  Anywhere.  
     “Mytho,” she greeted him warmly.  He looked up at her, but there was none of that longing in his eyes today.  She wondered if she’d imagined it yesterday.  “Would you like to sit with me?” she asked.  
     “Okay,” he consented, and together they sat on a stone bench, overlooking the fountain.   
     Rue watched the water in silence, looping her arm through his and resting her head on his shoulder.  Just being around him was a comfort, and she wished this moment could last forever.  She looked up at him, expecting to see that familiar blankness in his eyes, but a coldness washed over her at what she saw instead.  “What are you thinking about?” she asked for maybe the first time ever.  Because for the first time ever he actually looked like he _was_ thinking.  
     “This feeling,” he murmured, touching his chest.  “This longing I’ve never felt before.”  
     “Longing for me?” she asked, choking a little on the words.  
     “I don’t really know,” Mytho murmured.  
     “It’s okay,” Rue consoled him gently.  “You can be a dummy Mytho.”  She took his hand, twining her fingers through his, “Now and forever.  Trust me Mytho, you do love me.”  
     “Okay,” he parroted back, “I do love you.”  
     A sharp little knife cut at her heart and she blinked back tears.  “Yes, just remember that.  You don’t need to understand.  And you don’t need a heart either.”  A strange look crossed his face and she lifted her head to see him better, “What?”  
     His expression twisted.  “This feeling of wanting to see someone and talk to them, it stays even when I’m with you.”  
     Her eyes cut to him as shock and hurt coursed through her in equal proportions.   
     He gazed down at her, “Could this possibly be the feeling of loneliness?”  
     She gaped at him, unable to answer.  
     Then suddenly Fakhir was there stalking toward them.  “Rue!” he growled dangerously, “Would you please stop making him recall such stupid things?”   
     Rue glared up at Fakhir mutinously.   _Hilarion dies.  
_      He walked right up to them angrily, “Mytho, go back to your room,” he ordered.   
     Mytho obediently rose to his feet, “Okay,” he murmured, walking away.  
     Rue was still too shocked by his last statement to object.  
     Fakhir turned on Rue, his expression murderous.  “You better not be the person helping him dredge up these weird things.”  
     “Oh please,” she rolled her eyes, recovering her voice.  
     “Who else are you saying could have done it?”  
 _Who indeed?_   But she laughed as if it didn’t really matter to her, even if it was killing her inside.  “Maybe it was Princess Tutu from the fairytale,” she mocked him, “maybe she appeared in reality and…”  
     “That’s absurd!” he snapped.  He stared at her through slit eyes, and just then he reminded her of a snake ready to strike.  “Try to stay away from Mytho from now on.”  
     Rue shot to her feet angrily, “Stop trying to order me around!”  
     “Do as I say,” he sneered, “and I will.”

***

     Thanks to her outburst during rehearsal that morning, and skipping out on her duties last night, Ms. Ziegenfuss made Aria alphabetize every record and music book, dust all the shelves, clean every locker top and bottom, and wash every window and mirror in the main practice studio three times until they shined.  By the time she lugged the ladder back down the stairs and stowed it in the janitorial closet, it was evening and the entire day was simply gone.  _And I’ve still got two more practice rooms to clean,_ she remembered in defeat.  
     “Sheesh, why don’t you just expel me or something already,” Aria complained as Ms. Ziegenfuss waited for her to finish so she could lock up.  
     “I’m sure Mr. Catt would,” the woman sniffed, “If it were not for your benefactress.”  
     Aria looked up at her in bewilderment.  “My what?”  
     “Who do you think pays for your education here?” the strict instructor asked.  She gestured to a painting on one wall that Aria had probably passed a million times.  “The great Ariadne, benefactress of the Gold Crown Ballet School apparently sees the seeds of talent in you, Miss Arima.  Your entire education is provided through her sizable estate.”  
     Aria looked up at the painting in wonder.  The woman was posed in a white tutu and dress, her snowy toe shoes almost glistening.  There was something familiar about her face but Aria couldn’t quite place it.  She was quickly distracted by another painting, the portrait of a beautiful woman with dark black hair.  “Who’s this?” she asked.  
     Ms. Ziegenfuss looked up at the portrait in surprise.  “That’s Annaliese, of course, one of the founders of this school.”  
     Something about the portrait caught at Aria’s imagination.  There was a look in the woman’s eyes, though she smiled, she seemed so sad.  “What happened to her?” she wondered aloud.  
     The instructor sighed irritably.  “Don’t you know anything?  She died, apparently of a broken heart.”  
     “You mean that’s real?” she gasped, “You can actually die of a broken heart?”  
     A far-off look came into Ms. Ziegenfuss’s eyes, “You can,” she murmured, “Or if you don’t you’ll wish you had.”  Then she caught herself and glared down at Aria.  “Now go on, I’d like to get home while there’s still some daylight left.”  
     Aria left the school disgruntled, rubbing her sore arms and cursing her luck as she walked down the street toward the dorms.  She wondered about Ms. Ziegenfuss’s story about Annaliese, and what it would be like to die of a broken heart.  The Prince had broken his heart, _shattered_ it, and he was still alive.  Maybe it wasn’t the same thing.  Or maybe his heart had broken _before_ it was shattered.  Maybe that’s why it shattered.  Was restoring the Prince’s heart like piecing together the bits of a broken heart?  The fancy of the idea took up a place in her imagination, and in her own little world, Aria idly strolled down the street.   
     The wind had picked up, lashing her skirt against her legs, and Aria tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ears to keep them from whipping in her face.  She headed toward the dorms, thinking she’d dig through the clothes Lillie had dropped off in the vain hope that maybe she’d get to go to the festival tomorrow.  
     But as she neared the dorm she saw Mytho standing at the gate.  He seemed to be staring off into nothing, and as she drew closer, she heard him speak.  “What is it you want me to do?”  
 _Huh?_   She looked around but didn’t see anyone about. “Who are you talking to?” she called out over the intervening space.  He didn’t seem to hear her, and just then the wind changed directions, blowing against her, and she threw up her arms as the gust pushed her back.  “What was that—” she broke off when the wind died away.  
     Mytho was gone.  
     “Mytho?” she called out.  No answer.  “Where are you?”  
     A feeling of dread crept over her and her pendant began to pulse against her chest.  She started running.  Just as she was passing the gate, someone stepped into her path and Aria had to pull off some pretty heroic acrobatics to prevent both of them being thrown to the cobblestones.  She looked up to realize the person she’d narrowly missed colliding with was Rue.  
     “What are you doing?” Rue asked irritably.  
     Aria was abashed “I’m sorry,” she apologized, even as she peered around Rue to look down the street after Mytho.  _Go after him, go after him!  
_      “Were you just calling for Mytho?”  
     “Oh, um,” Aria refocused on Rue, “Yeah I was.”  
     “Do you need something?” the older girl demanded.   
     “No, not need,” Aria found herself dancing in place, one hand closed over her pendant, “but I just saw him come out this way.”  _And I really need to go after him.  
_      “What?” Rue did a quick double-take.  “There was no one coming out.”  
     “But I’m sure I saw Mytho,” Aria fretted, the pendant searing against her palm.  _Unless I’m going crazy, then again I am a duck who can turn into a girl who can—  
_      “No way,” Rue was starting to get angry, a little flicker of fire in her eyes, “I didn’t see anyone out here.”  
     Aria glanced over her shoulder down a side road, oblivious to Rue’s anger.  “Then maybe he went that way,” she mused.  
     Rue frowned at her suddenly, “It was you, wasn’t it?”  
     Aria snapped back to the conversation at hand, whipping her head around to look at Rue.  “Huh? What?”  
     Rue was visibly angry, glaring down at her.  “You cried out suddenly when I was dancing and interrupted me.”  
     “Oh,” Aria managed to look contrite, “well that was—”  
     “You don’t seem to have the slightest comprehension as to how much focus is required when dancing,” Rue responded, her ire going up.  
     “Oh if it’s about that, I’m sorry, although I was just going to warn you that you were overbalanced,” Aria quickly apologized.   
     Rue’s face paled and she drew herself up, “ _Excuse me??_ ” she spoke incredulously, “How _dare_ you presume to know _anything_ about me, or about ballet.  I’ve seen _you_ in class, and you’re—”  
     “Uh huh,” Aria nodded, dancing nervously from one foot to the next, “But more importantly, Mytho was acting weird just now, or rather acting strange, but that’s the same.  Anyway, I’ve got to find him now!” _Go after him, go after him, go after him!_ The impulse was screaming in her mind.  “See you,” she called out and dashed away as that strange instinct burned at the pit of her stomach.  
     Rue huffed in frustration “Hold on!” she cried out, “We aren’t done talking yet,” but Aria was already gone.  “Wait just a minute!”

***

     Rue couldn’t believe how fast the girl could run.  She was barely able to keep her in sight as they careened through the evening traffic of Goldkrone Towne.  If it wasn’t for that ridiculously horrendous skirt, Rue would have lost her in the crowd.  She wasn’t even sure why she was chasing after the girl, except she wanted someone to _blame_ for her lack of focus in class, and for Mytho acting strangely, and well, the girl was right there in front of her.  Or she would be if Rue could only run faster.  Honestly, _how_ was she not on Gold Crown’s track team??  
     They had reached the Marktplatz by the time Rue finally caught up to her.  “Hey!” she shouted breathlessly, finally snagging the girl’s attention.  “Hey wait!”  
     The girl slid to a stop and glanced over her shoulder and Rue skidded up to her.  She clutched at a stitch in her side, gasping for breath.  “Your … name … it’s Duck … right?” she panted.   
     “Oh!” the girl’s eyes went wide.  “Yeah, uh, I know.”  
     Rue glared as Duck imitated her broken speech.  “Don’t mock me,” she snapped irately.  “I’m just a little out of breath.  Just cut it out.”  
     Duck managed to look apologetic, “Okay, sorr—” she cut herself off with a double-take as if checking to see whether or not apologizing would be offensive to Rue.  
     Having caught her breath, Rue glared down at Duck.  “What are you doing chasing after Mytho anyway?”  
     “Oh I don’t know,” Duck looked around again the way she had at the dorms, not really paying attention to Rue.  “It’s just weird you know.  One minute he was standing at the gates talking to someone I couldn’t see, or at least I thought he was talking to someone I couldn’t see, maybe he was just talking to himself, except it seemed like he was talking to someone.  But then the next moment it was like time had skipped forward and he was gone.  That’s weird don’t you think?” she asked, finishing her babbling monologue as she looked up at Rue.  
     Rue tried to find something wrong in her logic, but frankly she was so baffled listening to the girl babble that she wasn’t sure she could.  Finally she sniffed, “Well if you’re looking for Mytho then I’m coming with you.”  
     “Okay,” Duck agreed with a careless shrug.  She took off again and Rue had to hurry to keep up.  
     “Hey, slow down!” she commanded.  
     “Oh, sorry,” Duck immediately checked her step.  They were in the shadow of St. Godfrey’s now, the church rising above them, its steeple blotting out a large swath of the sky.  Rue looked up at it and saw several crows perched on the roof.  She suppressed a shudder.  She’d never liked crows. They gave her the creeps.  
     “Um…” Duck’s voice trailed off.  
     “What is it?” Rue snapped irritably, as if the girl might have seen her frightened by a few stupid birds.  
     “Since there are two of us here I was thinking maybe it’d be faster if we split up and searched separately.”  There was not a trace or hint in her voice of any kind of subterfuge.  
     “That’s true,” Rue agreed readily, almost unconsciously straightening her shoulders under her grey uniform jacket. “You’re quite right.  It’s rather odd that someone like you and I would be walking together to begin with.”  
     “Odd?” this time Duck’s voice sounded a little hurt.  “Oh, well I’ll go look over here,” she volunteered quickly, “We can decide on a time or something and meet up somewhere—”  
     For some strange reason an emotion tugged at Rue’s chest, not quite fear and not quite dread, like the ghost of an apprehension.  It was getting to be dark out, the streets were mostly empty, and Duck was the only living soul—save for the crows—around.  “I’ve changed my mind,” she spoke up quickly, sniffing a bit haughtily.  
     “What?” Duck asked, clearly surprised, “Wh-why is that?”  
     “It’s much more reliable with two pairs of eyes looking.”  
     “Oh,” Duck shrugged, “Okay.”  She was tugging at a chain around her neck and she pointed up a side street, “Well I think we should look over this way.”  
     “Why is that?” Rue asked, peering down the dark street trying to cover her own nervousness.  
     “Oh I don’t know, I just thought that maybe Mytho would have gone this way.”  
     “Why on earth would Mytho have gone that way—” but before she could question the girl further, Duck had taken off down the alley and Rue found herself hurrying to keep up with her. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.  
     Duck slowed down again as they turned another corner and passed the local dairy.  “I’m looking for Mytho,” she repeated as if Rue had forgotten.  
     “Why should you even care about him?” Rue snapped angrily.  
     Duck had stopped and was looking around, still toying with the chain at her neck, “Oh I don’t know, people should care about other people, don’t you think?  I think so anyway.  It’d be a much nicer world if they did.”  
     Rue suppressed a shudder.  There was something oddly unnerving about her otherwise unassuming companion.   
     “Um…” Duck drawled out the sound again as she picked a seemingly random direction and started walking.  
     “What is it now?” Rue sighed.   
     “Have you been friends with Mytho for a long time now?”  
     “You keep calling him Mytho,” Rue sniffed, “that’s awfully forward of you.”  
     “Well what else would I call him?”  
     “Senior Mytho is appropriate,” Rue schooled her.  “You are a junior student, after all.  You shouldn’t be addressing him as a peer.”  
     “But he—”  
     “Oh, and another thing,” she turned on the girl, ready to put her in her place, “we’re not exactly friends so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me Rue.”  
     “Then what am I supposed to call you?”  
     “Lady Rue,” Rue answered her superiorly.  
     Duck’s face screwed up in an expression somewhere between confusion and astonishment.  “Hmm… Lady … Rue.” She tested the words on her tongue, sounding them out with a ludicrous amount of emphasis.  
     Even Rue had to admit it sounded a bit ridiculous—not that she ever would.  “What?” she snapped again, irritated that Duck was making something so simple so difficult, “What’s so hard about that?”  
     “I don’t know, it’s just weird,” she shrugged, “I’ll call you Rue.  It’s cuter that way.”  
     Rue froze, astonished.  For a second, just a second, she had a weird vertigo sensation of being in another place and another time looking at Duck as she said those words, _“It’s cuter that way.”  
_      “Cuter?” she repeated back, her lips numb.  
     Duck nodded.  “Besides, we’ve walked together and talked all this time, so we’re already friends now.  Thus it’s Rue.”  She picked up her pace again and turned down Kanalgasse along the canal.  
     In a flash the weird moment was gone and Rue glared after the girl.  _Who does she think she is, anyway?_

 


	8. Der Zweig Rosmarin

**_The Sprig of Rosemary_ **

****

     It had definitely grown late out, and Aria couldn’t believe so much time had passed as she and Rue searched the town for Mytho.  _Always before the pendant led me straight to him,_ she wondered as they walked, _but I feel like we’re going in circles._   And in fact they were, because this was the third time they’d walked along the canal.  _Where can he be and why is it taking so long to find him, and why is Rue still walking with me?_    
     That was perhaps the biggest mystery of all.  It had to be almost midnight, and for three hours now, Rue had walked right alongside her down the dark and narrow streets of Goldkrone Towne on what was starting to feel like a fool’s errand.  Aria shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms.  “It sure gets cold along the canal at night, doesn’t it?” she asked Rue.  Rue was silent, her eyes faraway.  Aria was still a little baffled that the ballerina had even wanted to walk with her to begin with. _Except of course I am looking for Mytho, and Mytho is her boyfriend.  But where could he be?  
_      Fog rose from the canal, spreading across the street in a sort of low mist that only lent to the eeriness of the evening.  The streets were all empty and she figured most sensible people were already in bed.  Except…  “What’s that?” she asked suddenly, pointing through the mist up the street.  
     Rue squinted, “It looks like people,” she murmured.  
     Aria could see them more clearly now, a group of women and they—“They’re all crying,” she uttered in surprise.  
     “It’s a funeral,” Rue pointed out, “So it’s only natural.”  
_Who has a funeral in the middle of the night?_   Aria wondered.  _Funerals are creepy enough during the day._ And then Aria spotted a familiar figure in the line of mourners.  “Mytho?” she gasped.  
     The sight of the Prince among the mourners turned Aria’s blood inexplicably cold.  Together she and Rue took off running and calling to him, but he didn’t react to their cries, didn’t even turn to look their way.  It was like he couldn’t hear them at all.  The procession crossed a bridge and disappeared up an alley.  Aria and Rue swung around the bridge after them, but came suddenly upon a blank wall on the other side.   
     “What the—” Aria broke off before she could finish the oath.  
     Rue pulled alongside her, hands on her knees.  “What’s this?  A dead end?”  
     “That’s impossible right?” Aria asked, a little wild-eyed.  “We both just saw him come this way, it’s not like he could just disappear and—” A familiar sound ghosted out of the darkness to cut Aria off.  She spun in place, trying to place it, and then dashed back over the bridge in search of it.  
     “What are you doing?” Rue called after her, trying to keep up.  
     “Miss Edel!” Aria cried out, ignoring Rue.  Surely if anyone in this town could tell her what was going on right now it was Miss Edel.   
      The organ grinder materialized out of the mist and the tinny rendition from Coppélia cut off when she released the crank.  “Good evening, Duck,” Edel greeted in her soft voice, “Good evening Rue.”  
     Rue gaped at the woman in surprise, “How is that you know my—”  
     “Oh, she knows everything,” Aria interjected quickly, “Even the fact that I’m a—” her eyes went wide and she cut herself off, blushing.  She’d almost just let slip to Rue that she was a duck!  
     Rue’s eyes narrowed at her, aware she’d missed something.  “Say what?”  
     “Anyway,” Aria hurried on, “She’s nobody suspicious.”  
     “She is too!” Rue counteracted hotly.  
      Aria pointedly turned and faced the organ grinder.  “Miss Edel, we were looking for Mytho and we saw him here, but something really weird happened just now.”  She turned and pointed back toward the dead end.  “He walked over that bridge with a funeral procession and then vanished!”  
     Edel nodded in understanding.  “A story within a story.”  
     Aria’s head whipped back around, “Huh?  A story?”  
     “Like in Hamlet?” Rue asked at the same time.  
      Edel ignored them both, continuing on as if neither had spoken.  “There once was a beautiful maiden with a beautiful heart, and maidens fall in love.”  
     “Your story has nothing to do with finding Mytho,” Rue cut in rudely.  
     Edel was unaffected by Rue’s interruption.  “But unlike her beloved, this maiden was not noble born.  It was a love never to be requited.”  
     Rue puffed up, “I just said—”  
     Aria quickly covered Rue’s mouth, “Wait Rue,” she cut the girl off, “So what happened to the maiden, Miss Edel?”  
     Edel stared at the ground sorrowfully, “Devastated, she took her own life.”   
     Aria was aghast, and even Rue seemed interested now.  
      “If her love would not be requited in this world,” Edel went on relentlessly, “she’d be reborn and see it fulfilled in the next.  However, her fiancé never came and the maiden took another man to the world of the dead in his stead.  This is the maiden’s melancholy story within the story.”   
     “That’s just the story of Giselle,” Rue scoffed.  
     The fog suddenly thickened around them and Aria shivered.  “What do you mean?” she asked Edel.   
      Edel gazed at her impassively.  “Here in this town there was a maiden who met the exact same fate.  As in the story, she fell in love.  And just as in the story, she lost hope.  Just as in the story, she took her own life, and then…”  
      Aria’s eyes went wide, an awful suspicion growing in her mind, “Is the story going to become real?”  Because stories can do that, can’t they?  Hadn’t she seen it happen?  White-hot light pounded behind her eyes.  
      “The story will become real,” Edel assured her, “in this town where reality and stories intermingle.”  
     Somewhere in the distance the church bell began to toll the midnight hour.  “Just as in the story, Mytho will be taken in that man’s stead,” Aria realized with horror.   
     “I won’t let that happen,” Rue declared.  
     “It’s starting,” Edel informed them, pointing across the bridge.   
     They looked and saw that the dead end had opened leading into what looked like a park.   
     “The dead end!” Aria gasped.  
     “A mansion!?” Rue exclaimed in shock, squinting to spy it through the fog.  
     “The maiden’s soul has settled in that mansion’s courtyard,” Edel told them, “she has been waiting.”  
     Aria had heard enough.  The pendant was pulsing at her neck and the urgency that had driven her to follow Mytho in the first place had escalated to a burning _need._  “Let’s go Rue!” she cried, grabbing Rue’s arm and dragging her across the bridge.  This time the ballerina seemed all too eager to follow her.  
     White-hot light exploded in Aria’s mind when she stepped into the mansion’s courtyard.  It was overgrown, tangled vines cutting through cracked paving stones and broken statuary littered the ground.  The walls of the mansion crumbled around them, broken out windows looked darkly down at them, but for one instant Aria looked up and saw it as if it were new.  
_“Is she in there?”  
__“Yes, the Marble Hall I think.”  
__“Damn, the crows are back!”  
__“Hurry, they can’t get to us inside!”  
_      A thousand images exploded behind her eyes and Aria pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to cut off the white-hot pain that throbbed inside her mind.  
     “Mytho!”  
     She looked up when Rue called out his name and saw the figure of the Prince through the fog.  He was staring up at a window of the mansion and didn’t seem to have heard them.  He seemed to be speaking to someone who wasn’t there.  “Mytho!” she called out again.  
     Another flash of white light exploded behind her eyes.  
_“Mytho!”  
__“Take my hand, hurry now!”  
_       Aria gasped against the pain in her head, and against her heart her pendant was burning like fire.  
     “Mytho, who are you talking to?” Rue cried out over the empty courtyard.  
      Aria looked up and saw that, impossibly, shapes were beginning to materialize out of the mist.  “Rue,” she gasped, pulling the other girl back before she charged across that open space.  “There’s something here.”  
     The shapes were growing more solid now, taking on the forms of women.  They wore long flowing gowns like shrouds, their formless faces veiled.   
     “What’s going on?” Rue gasped in horror.  
      The figures were surrounding Mytho, and he turned to face them.  A chasm opened before his feet the exact shape of a grave, and from that grave rose another woman, her white dress glowing with a faintly golden light.  Aria stared at her in awe.  That face, it looked so familiar.  “Annaliese?” she gasped in wonder.  A red light throbbed and Aria looked down to see her pendant glowing.  
      But another light was burning against the back of her eyelids.  And a pain, a cutting pain that lanced into her was slicing through her chest.  She gasped against it, only distantly aware as the ghost of Annaliese stepped forward on one white pointe shoe and began to dance with a furious energy.  
_“Watch your flank!”  
__“There’s too many of them!”  
__“Get her inside!”  
__“Mytho no!”  
_ Aria pressed her hands against her temples, trying to blot out the strange images that danced before her eyes.  Mytho was in danger right now, she _had_ to focus.  
 “So it was you who was calling to me all of this time,” Mytho spoke to the spectral dancer.   
Annaliese’s ghost leapt toward him, beckoning that he might join her.  In her outstretched hand she held a blossoming sprig of rosemary.  
Rue’s face went suddenly white, “The rosemary from Giselle?” she gasped.  She rushed forward, crying out desperately.  “You mustn’t accept it!”  
 “No, Rue!” Aria called after her, “it’s a trap!”  
_“It’s a trap!”  
__“Then we’ll spring it.”  
__“Sire, no!”  
_  “Rue no,” Aria gasped.  She took a step forward, but the white-hot light burned behind her eyes and drove her to her knees.

***

Rue had thought from the moment she’d entered the mansion’s rundown courtyard with Duck that the place was eerily familiar.  She’d felt a creeping sensation across her skin like she should remember this place having been in Goldkrone Towne.  But all of that was pushed aside when the spirits appeared.  Suddenly, she didn’t stop to question what was happening.  Because as impossible as it all sounded, she _knew_ what was happening.  This was Giselle, and just like in Giselle, the spirits were Willis planning to dance Mytho into the grave.  And she was _not_ going to let that happen!  
She crossed the courtyard, heedless of the cracked and uneven paving stones, and the cold spirits that stood between her and Mytho.  “You’ll be taken away to the world of the dead,” she shouted urgently as she ran.  And then she rose up onto the toe of her black school shoe and twirled into a double pirouette.  It was by no means perfect, impeded as she was by the uneven ground and her own shoes.  But it was enough to catch Mytho’s attention.  “Come over here!” she called to him, holding out her hands in desperation.  
Mytho started to turn, started to come to her, but two of the Willis immediately moved forward and captured him.  They wrapped their spectral arms around him and held him immobile.  
The maiden whom Duck had called Annaliese stepped suddenly forward and twirled into a double pirouette, mimicking Rue.  
Rue’s eyes widened when she realized what was happening.  _I am Giselle!_   And if that were true then there was only one way to save Mytho.  She had to dance.  So despite the clunky shoes she wore, she stepped onto the demi-pointe of her right foot and spun into a triple pirouette as across the courtyard the spirit maiden did the same.   
Rising up en pointe was impossible, but Rue balanced as close to the toes of her shoes as she could and crossed the courtyard with a pas de bourre couru, her crossed wrists held low before her.  The spirit maiden moved with her, almost as if they two were mirroring each other.  She turned and lifted her right leg developpé, rotating her hip to move her working leg into an arabesque and slowly promenaded on the leather sole of her shoe.  Maybe it was in her head or maybe it was real, but she could almost hear the music from Giselle playing across the shadowed courtyard.  Sweat beaded on her forehead while she pirouetted in a wide circle around Mytho, the spirit maiden dancing right along with her.  
The music became louder in her ears, haunting and beautiful all at the same time.  She danced, moving in the steps she’d learned long ago.  But the longer she danced the more tired she became.  The spirit maiden, she knew, could dance until dawn.  But how many more hours would that be?  Her legs were starting to shake, her muscles protesting against the abuse.  _I can’t do this!_   She realized.  _I don’t have the stamina to dance Giselle to the end!  
_ She looked up at the spirit maiden, cool and serenely poised before her.  Then her eyes went to Mytho held captive by the Willis. _If only I’d trained harder!_   She thought desperately.  But it was too late.  Her body gave out and her ankle turned beneath her.  Rue tripped and went careening to the cracked and broken stones.   
Duck cried out her name, but Rue’s eyes were on Mytho.  The spirit maiden stood before him again, the rosemary in her hands.  Rue’s stomach twisted and she jumped to her feet.  “No, don’t!” she cried desperately, rushing forward.  But the Willis turned on her.  Two spectral maidens spun, catching Rue with outstretched arms.  They struck her in the chest and Rue reeled backwards.  She hit the stones harder this time, seeing a flash of stars and sky before it all blacked out.

***

Aria stared in horror at Rue lying on the ground.  She looked up at the Willis who’d turned away from the fallen girl the moment they’d struck.  They surrounded Mytho now, the ghost of Annaliese offering him the rosemary once more.  White-hot pain erupted behind her eyes.  
_The prince kneeling on a checkerboard floor.  
__“For you, my Heart…”  
__A sword driven true…  
_  “No!” Aria cried out.  
She closed her eyes and mind to that white-hot light and clasped her pendant in one hand, forcing back the pain that had driven her down.  She lurched to her feet, _I have to be strong for Mytho!  I have to be Princess Tutu!_ But the light that bled into her mind was too bright to be blinked away.  It split her skull as she tried to rise and drove her back down.  
_The taste of blood…  
__“Mytho…”  
__“My little duck, what have you done?”  
_ Aria clutched at her head, mouth open in a silent scream as the images flashed through her burning brain.  Before her Mytho reached out, fingers stretching toward the rosemary offering.  One touch and he would be lost forever.  
_Fog and pain…  
__A beggar carrying a broken doll…  
__“Who am I?”  
_  “No,” Aria gasped.  “Not like this.”  She forced herself up, took one stumbling step forward and swallowed back a wave of nausea as she tried to focus on the Willis through the haze of white light.  _I_ will _save Mytho!_  And with that thought she leapt forward, leapt beyond the white light bleeding into her brain, leapt beyond broken memory and pain, transforming in midair.  Her leap carried her further than humanly possible, and she cleared Rue as the girl’s eyes fluttered open.  Tutu landed on one knee before the ghost of Annaliese and Mytho.  “My prince, stop!” she instructed, “you mustn’t take it!”  
Annaliese turned toward her, “Why,” she asked, her voice the ghostly echoing of a shattered bell.  “Why do you interfere?  Who are you?”  
 “I am Princess Tutu,” she told the specter.  She rose up en pointe and arched her arms in the mime for dance, “Please, come and dance with me.”  Extending one arm, she took the specter’s cold grasp in hers, guiding her away from Mytho.  
They pirouetted apart from each other and Tutu turned to face the spectral maiden, posed in a perfect arabesque.  “Just like you I am fated never to be with the one whom I love,” she confessed.  Tears stung her eyes as she spoke, the words like an icy dagger in her last shard of hope.  She hopped forward on the ball of her foot in arabesque voyagée as the ghost of Annaliese mirrored her across the way.  “But that is a fate I cannot change.”  Her voice was thick, the words difficult to speak.  She dropped her working leg into a quick glissade, light on her feet, and stepped into a developpé.  “Though your heart was broken, it does not mean you must continue to suffer so,” she twisted into an arabesque and promenaded agonizingly slow.  
 “You would not feel the same if your heart had been shattered as mine was,” the spirit replied to her.  
Tutu dropped her working leg and they pirouetted around each other again.  She could see the ghost of a terrible pain in the spectral maiden’s eyes.  “Tell me,” she invited kindly.  
An expression crossed the spirit’s face, “I—I no longer remember.”  
But though the spirit struggled with the recollection, there was a flash in Tutu’s mind of an almost-memory.  A love and a betrayal, a purpose cast to oblivion, and the brooding image of a crow as blood dried into the earth.  It wasn’t like the white-hot flashes that had plagued Aria upon entering the mansion’s courtyard.  This memory was so long ago, so distant, so lost in time it had become shattered, only the bitterest pieces of it living on as pure emotion.  
 “You were betrayed by the one you loved,” Tutu spoke, trying to piece together that emotion.  
 “He was not the man I thought he was,” the spirit sighed, “he did not love me as I loved him.”  
_What do I know of love?_   Tutu despaired, _how can I fix that kind of broken?  How can anyone?  
_ They danced on, repeating their mirrored pattern back and forth over the cracked stones of the courtyard, a perfectly matched pair moving effortlessly together.  Almost perfect.  
 “If you share the same fate as I, then why is your dancing not laden with sorrow as well?” the maiden asked.  
Tutu smiled as she danced and the smile shown through tears.  “Because of the many other emotions in my heart that won’t give in to the sorrow.”  The ghost of Annaliese seemed surprised by this.  “Even if you take Mytho with you, it won’t dispel the sorrow will it?  Because the sorrow that resides within you is not how you truly feel.”  She stepped forward and took both the maiden’s hands in hers.   
The maiden sank to one knee, making the mime for death.   
 “I cannot know how much, nor how long you have suffered,” Tutu went on, “But I know, whatever your story is, you have grieved long enough.  And so you can sleep in peace now.”  She bent down, one leg lifted in attitude, and put her arms around the spirit’s shoulders.  “Yes,” she comforted, “you needn’t grieve anymore.”  
Around them the Willis blinked out like so many candles in the wind, and the spirit maiden’s form began to glow from gold to red.  As it did it shifted and changed until it stood before Tutu in the form of Mytho’s heart shard.  With tears standing in her eyes, Tutu held her hands out to it and it burst into a million sparkling lights that reformed in her hand. She gazed down at it, silent tears running down her cheeks.  _Sorrow.  
_ She looked up at Mytho who stood staring at her.  In the moonlight his hair and eyes shown like silver.  “I’m sorry,” she whimpered.  _What I wouldn’t give to keep this one small shard from you._

_***_

Mytho felt that same familiar pull the moment the heart shard reformed in Princess Tutu’s hands.  He approached her as she turned toward him, surprised to see the tears upon her cheeks.  She held the shard toward him.  “This is the shard of your heart called sorrow,” she said, her voice breaking on the words.  “And it makes people suffer.”  Her eyes closed and she almost seemed to wilt before him.  “But it is still a part of you.”  
She opened her hands and released the shard, returning it to Mytho. He closed his hands around it this time as the bright jewel burned into his chest.  The pain was familiar to him and he knew what it was now.  He knew it was the pieces of his shattered heart returning, and he welcomed it.  In his mind a window opened and a memory uncurled like smoke.  
_Desperation, quiet, hopeless…  
__A warm weight in his arms, too light and too still…  
__“What have you done?”  
__“I’m sorry.  I didn’t listen…”  
__Heartache, pain…  
__The taste of tears…  
_ He opened his eyes, surprised to find that the tears were real.  His face was wet with them.  Tutu smiled at him, a soft and sad little smile that cut more deeply than any heart shard, and then she curtsied and she was gone.  All around him the vision of the courtyard disappeared.  The walls of the mansion crumbled and disintegrated into dust, leaving only the memory of a hollowed out foundation, and the cracked checkerboard tiles of what must have once been a grand home.  
 “Mytho?”  
He looked over to see Rue standing hesitant before him.  “Rue,” he acknowledged.  
She stared at him in wonder.  “Mytho, why are you crying?”  
He turned away from her, trying to hold onto the memory, the _feeling_ of sorrow.  _For her,_ he thought.  _For her._

***

From his place in the shadows of another world, the gloating spirit looked down disgruntledly at the wasted mansion and its barebones courtyard.  The showdown in the courtyard hadn’t gone exactly the way he’d planned it to.  
 “You took a risk sending her back in there,” his female companion spoke blandly.  
 “I know!” he snapped, aware that the little duck had come dangerously close to snapping her memory spell _for the second time._   “But it had to be done.  That’s where the shard was, and the Prince is going to need every little piece of his heart for what comes next.”  
 “And what is that?” the woman asked with idle curiosity.  
He scowled at her, “Do you read the end of the story first?” he demanded grumpily.  
She cocked her wooden head at him in confusion.  
He sighed, “Of course you don’t, do you?”  He turned back to the image of the courtyard, empty now.  His characters having all left back to their domiciles for the night.   
The puppet glanced into the corner where a large hourglass stood.  “The sands of time are running out,” she observed.  
 “I am aware of that,” he sniped back.  
 “Your Princess is working too slowly.  Perhaps it’s time to speed up the story.”  
 “What would you know of stories?” he grumped, “Stick to your own work, puppet.  Now get out of here, the next chapter is about to begin!”

 


	9. Die Fee Tanze

**_The Faery Dance_ **

 

     If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, Rue never would have believed Mytho’s wild tale of Princess Tutu.  But she had.  She was there when the Willis captured Mytho, _and how is that possible?_   And she was there when Tutu danced the spirit maiden down and rescued the Prince only to return a shard of his heart.  It had been years since she’d read the Prince and the Raven, but she knew the story.  She knew what had happened, and she knew that Mytho was the Prince from the story.  What she couldn’t remember was Princess Tutu.  There was so little written about the character to begin with.  _Who is she, and what does she want?  
_      So despite it being Sunday, Rue found herself in the school library sitting alone at a desk poring over the pages of Drosselmeyer’s unfinished epic.  It was supposed to be a tragedy—she remembered that much.  But the author died while writing it, and it remained unfinished.  Just as she remembered, practically nothing was written about the fabled Princess Tutu.  Still, she sat for a long time staring at the sole illustration of the esoteric character:  an old man in a scarlet cloak with a long white beard spinning a story of the faery princess for a young boy.  And there hovering on airy wings over his hand in a glowing light was the princess herself.  _She doesn’t look much like the person I saw last night,_ she mused.  But then, Mytho only vaguely resembled the book’s illustrations as well.  
 _Mytho_.  It seemed like he was slipping away from her.  Last night in the courtyard _she_ should have been the one to save Mytho from the Willis.  But she wasn’t.  It was Tutu who saved Mytho, Tutu he’d looked at with such longing, Tutu he’d wept for.  He’d never so much as sneezed once in Rue’s direction.  But Tutu?  Tutu got tears.  
     He was waiting for her right now, she knew.  Waiting at school to practice the waltz they would dance together tonight at the fire festival.  And maybe they’d win that golden apple and be fated to be together forever.  But it would all be meaningless, wouldn’t it?  Because it wasn’t Rue he looked at with that longing, it was _her.  
_      A sound interrupted her reverie and Rue looked up as footsteps approached her.  It was Fakhir.  She quickly closed the book.   
     “What are you reading?” he demanded.  
     Rue smirked and stood up.  “Nothing.  It’s none of your business.”   
     He glanced sideways at the book sitting on the desk.  “The Prince and the Raven, huh?  I see.”  
     “What?” she challenged.  
     He glowered down at her.  “It seems you’ve gained an interest in seeing Mytho the way he was in the story.  Back before he lost his heart.”  
     Anger burned inside her.  “Are you implying I’m the one restoring Mytho’s heart?”  
     “Am I wrong then?” he asked with a single lifted brow.  
     She picked up her book and started walking away.  _As if I would restore the Prince’s heart!_ Of course she wouldn't, because if she did she might find out … find out it was never _her_ that Mytho loved.  It was _Tutu.  
_      Quick as a snake, Fakhir reached out and grabbed her arm.  “Hold it!” he commanded, whipping her around to face him.  
     Startled, she dropped the book and it went crashing to the floor.  She smiled suddenly, a reactive laugh bubbling out of her throat.  
     “What’s so funny?” he scowled.  
     She glanced down at the illustration of Princess Tutu the book had precipitously opened upon.  “What would you do if Princess Tutu really existed?” she mocked.  Because if she was jealous of Tutu, surely Fakhir must feel the same, right?  Rue wasn’t immune to the campus rumors after all.  
     He took a step toward her, his fingers digging into her wrist, and the dark look on his face made something small and fragile inside her wither in fear.  “Did something happen?”  
     It took all of Rue’s self-control to maintain her confident façade.  “No,” she shrugged tauntingly, shaking off his hand, “Nothing happened.”  She laughed again but there was nothing funny this time.  Rue had always assumed Fakhir’s interference with her and Mytho was rooted in his own feelings for her boyfriend.  But now as she walked quickly away from him she wasn’t so sure.  For an instant—just one heartbeat—there’d been something deeper, more dangerous than jealousy in Fakhir’s eyes.  There’d been murder.  _Whoever Princess Tutu is,_ she thought, _I may not have to worry about Mytho being in love with her._ Because Rue felt for sure that if Fakhir could find the wench restoring Mytho’s heart, he’d kill her.

***

_Detention is bad enough on a weekday, but detention on a Sunday is just plain cruel._   Aria complained to herself as, under Ms. Ziegenfuss’s watchful supervision, she hauled her bucket of water and mop down the hall.  “I’ll come get you at noon,” the teacher informed her.  
 “Yeah I’m sure you will, you old goat,” Aria grumbled mutinously under her breath.  
 “What was that?”  
 “I look forward to it!” she called out cheerfully.  
Ms. Ziegnfuss threw her a suspicious look before striding away.   
 _She’s probably going to get ready for the fire festival,_ Aria sighed.  “This whole town is getting ready for the fire festival.”  They were hanging decorations all over the place when Aria walked to school this morning, and whole trees were being carried to the square to build the bonfire.  _And I’m mopping floors.  
_  “Oh who cares?” she snapped, facing the door to the large practice hall.  She pushed it open and dragged her bucket and mop inside, the heavy braid of her hair bumping against her shoulder.  The far wall was all window, and the morning sun streamed through the glass.  Aria blinked in the sudden burst of light and almost knocked over her mop water in fright.  She wasn’t alone.  
 “Mytho!” she squeaked.  And then she saw what he was wearing:  A brocaded doublet over soft hose and boots with a feathered hat on his head.  _He’s a Prince,_ she realized.  And for a moment he wasn’t wearing the dark burgundy clothing, but a fine blue velvet.  And for an instant his expression wasn’t blank, but fervent and desperate.  And for a single heartbeat Aria saw a flash of black feathers and heard a shout echoing in the back of her mind.   _Is this the real you, Mytho?_ A flash of light as bright as the sunshine exploded in her head.  
 “Oh!” she cried out, the pail of water falling from suddenly numb fingers.  Her cheeks began to burn and she realized they were staring at each other and saying absolutely nothing.  She quickly picked up the mop she’d dropped and hastily began wiping up the spilled water for want of something to do with her hands.  ”Oh, um, that is, I’m on cleaning duty as punishment so please don’t mind me.”  
Mytho crossed the empty studio to join her, “Have you seen Rue anywhere?”  
She stopped mopping and slowly turned to see him standing right behind her, “Seen Rue?” she asked, blushing furiously and looking anywhere but at him.   
 “Rue said she wanted to practice dancing for the fire festival,” Mytho murmured.  “So I’ve been waiting here all morning.”  
 _So Mytho’s going to be dancing with Rue tonight?  Of course.  
_  “But when I’m alone, it feels so dark and cold,” he confessed to her, his eyes on the floor.   
 “Feelings?” she gasped, and then she did look at him.  
 “Yes,” he murmured, eyes churning with … emotion.  
She stared at him, the mop forgotten in her hands.  “Why are you telling me this?” she wondered aloud.  
He cocked his head at her, “I don’t know,” he admitted, “You’re easy to talk to.”  
 “Oh!” she gasped, turning an even deeper shade of red.  
He took another step toward her.  “Will you be going tonight, Aria?”  
 _He just called me by name!_   Her shocked mind barely had time to register that fact, and then quite suddenly he reached out and took the mop from her, tossing it to the ground.   
 “Come Aria,” he said, “Let’s dance.”  
She blinked and suddenly he stood before her, same and not the same…  
 _A sword and a purpose…  
_ _“Let’s dance...”  
_ _“I’m right behind you…”  
_      White light flared behind her eyes and before it cleared, Mytho pulled her off her feet and into the steps of a stately waltz.  She squeaked his name in surprise, certain that if one could die of embarrassment, this would be her moment to go.  “I can’t go to the fire festival,” she rasped in a voice barely above a whisper.  _And I can’t really dance!  
_ But he didn’t stop dancing with her.  Instead, he spun her around and Aria was amazed that she kept her balance.  But dancing with Mytho felt so natural … so right.  Like she’d been doing it her whole life.  _Mytho wanted to dance with me of his own free will!  Could that be because he’s regaining his heart?  
_ It must be, right?  Aria didn’t know.  All she knew was the light pressure of his hand on her shoulder blade, the steady strength of the fingers gripping her own.  And the easy way her feet seemed to follow along with his lead.  There was no music, but she seemed to hear it echoing all around.  She chanced to close her eyes, and when she did the world opened up inside her mind.  She imagined _she_ was at the fire festival with Mytho.  That _she_ was dancing with the Prince while hundreds of eyes looked on.  Overhead the sky seemed to shimmer with a riot of rainbow color, and all around the staid and stately people were dressed in clothes from a dozen different bygone eras.  Magic sizzled in the air all around and the shimmering rainbow of colors high overhead intensified, pulsing like the northern auroras.   
But when she opened her eyes the fancy she’d drawn in her imagination disappeared in a flash of white and all she saw was herself reflected back in Mytho’s amber eyes.  They finished with several fast twirls and then his hands went to her waist and he lifted her easily into the air.  Aria stared down at him, her face as red as her hair.  _What is happening?_ she wondered.  His amber eyes were fixed on hers, slowly brightening into something warm and familiar.  It almost seemed… was he going to _smile_ at her?  Her heart raced in her chest.  
And then she glanced out the window to see Fakhir stalking by.  As it chanced he looked straight in at her and she could almost feel the dagger-cut of his eyes.  Something tight and terrible seized her chest and she lost her grip on Mytho’s arms.  
He set her down and Aria hastily pulled away, “Please,” she said, stumbling through a curtsy, “excuse me.”  Panic drove her across the room.  She swept up the mop and near-empty bucket and fled.  But when she closed the doors behind her she collapsed against them grinning like a fool.  “I can’t believe that I just danced with Mytho, the Prince!”  She stifled her giddy giggle with one hand.  Except of course, he was only dancing with her because Rue wasn’t there.  Her smile dropped away and she swallowed back the taste of something sour in her mouth.  _He was waiting for Rue,_ she reminded herself bitterly.  _He was waiting for Rue._

***

Fakhir burst through the side entrance just as the girl he’d seen dancing with Mytho turned up the hallway.  “Hey!” he called after her.  
Her back stiffened and without even turning to see who called out, she dropped the bucket and mop she carried and ducked into the girl’s locker room.  Fakhir’s eyes narrowed.  _Only the guilty conscience runs._   He tore down the hall and threw the door open not entirely sure what it was he even suspected.  Ignoring the impropriety implicit in entering, he stepped inside and looked around.  The locker room was empty.  “Where did she go?” he wondered aloud, doing a lap around the lockers at the center of the room.  No, it was definitely empty.  She had gone in _here_ hadn’t she?  He growled and walked out, throwing the door with enough force that it clattered off the opposite wall.  
His encounter with Rue this morning only served to feed the slowly simmering rage which had threatened to boil to the surface since the day the clock tower first chimed.  He _knew_ something had happened.  Mytho slipped out of the dorm yesterday while Fakhir was in the showers and he hadn’t come back to the room until late last night.  He’d given no explanation for where he’d been, and if Fakhir hadn’t known better he would have sworn that Mytho had been _crying._   Except he didn’t know better.  Not anymore.  Any damn thing was possible now.  
That’s why he went looking for Rue, hoping against hope that maybe Mytho was with her until late—disturbing though _that_ thought might be, it was a far more innocent pastime than what he suspected.  And what he suspected was that Mytho had received another shard of his heart.  It was the only explanation for what was going on.  _Someone_ was helping him regather the broken pieces.  Maybe it was Rue.  Maybe it _was_ Princess Tutu.  He didn’t give one jot _who_ it was.  
He was going to stop them.  No matter what.  
Rage fully fueled now, he strode up the hallway back toward the large practice hall and stepped inside.  “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded of Mytho.  
His roommate turned and faced him.  “Meaning of what?”  
The impassivity of his expression only enraged Fakhir further.  Didn’t Mytho _know_ the stakes?  Of course he didn’t.  He didn’t know anything, and that only infuriated Fakhir more.  _Why?_   Why had this fallen on _him?_   Why had _he_ become responsible for all of _this_ while Mytho went out of his way to make his duty that much more difficult?  His rage festered into resentment and he gestured at the ludicrous clothing.  “This ridiculous outfit,” he growled.  
 “Rue said to wear it,” Mytho shrugged in reply.  
 “Listen,” Fakhir snapped, stepping closer, “all you have to do is obey my orders and don’t pay any heed to what anyone else tells you.  That includes what Rue says!”  There was a beat of silence and Fakhir closed the distance between them.  “And for that matter, what were you doing dancing with that useless girl?”  
 “She’s called Aria.  Her name is Aria…”  
 “I didn’t ask for trivia!” Fakhir shouted. “There’s no need to dance with the likes of her just because she asked.”  
 “That’s not what happened.”  Mytho answered quietly.  “Rue hadn’t come, and I’d been waiting by myself.  Then Aria came, so…”  
 “Are you saying _you_ invited her to dance?” Fakhir asked in disbelief, just barely keeping his temper in check.  This was worse than he could have possibly imagined.  Saving small creatures in danger was one thing—that was ingrained in Mytho’s psyche.  But acting for himself in any capacity?  Mytho took orders, he didn’t make decisions.  
 “Yes.”  
Fury exploded inside of him and Fakhir suddenly lashed out, grabbing Mytho by the collar and shoving him into the wall.  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he growled harshly.  “All you have to do is listen to what I tell you and stop wasting your time on such useless nonsense!”  
Mytho’s face was turned away, his eyes fixed on the middle distance.  There was nothing there.  No thought.  No reaction.  
Fakhir snarled at him.  “When you were wandering endlessly completely stripped of all your memories I was the one who gave you the name of Mytho.  I was the one who saved you and don’t ever forget that!”  
 “I know,” Mytho replied.  
 “You will stay home.  Got it?”  Some of his anger receded and he loosened his hold.  “Being as you are now is for the best.”  
 “But Rue wants me to dance with her,” Mytho answered him, staring at the floor.   
 _Rue!?_   Three days ago he’d dumped the girl for some useless chit he’d apparently tossed out five hours later.  “Forget about Rue!” Fakhir answered sharply.  
 “I have to let her know I can’t go.”  
Fakhir’s eyes thinned to slits, “Are you defying me?”  
 “No, but…”  
But he was.  Three days ago it never would have occurred to Mytho to be _polite._   Three days.  How had it all gone to hell in _three days?_   Well no more.  There was too much at risk.  He’d allowed this to go far enough.  “Come with me!”  Fakhir took Mytho by the elbow and forcefully dragged him across the studio and out into the hall.  
 “Where are we going Fakhir?” Mytho asked.  “Fakhir?”  
 “Never mind that!” Fakhir snapped.  He was done talking.

***

Aria never thought she would purposefully turn herself into a duck, but when Fakhir came running after her, she couldn’t think what else to do.  As a duck, she’d hidden under the bench in the locker room while he walked through it, muttering dark curses to himself.  Then she’d followed him out, worried what he might to do to Mytho.  She had good reason to worry too.  She hadn’t heard much of their conversation through the door, but Fakhir’s raised voice was enough to judge that it wasn’t amiable.  And when Fakhir dragged Mytho out of the ballet school, she knew she had to do _something_ to help the Prince.   
At her throat, the pendant was pulsing like a beating heart.  Apprehension vibrated through her and the little downy duck rushed into the empty studio and jumped up into the window in time to see Fakhir take Mytho into the library.  _The library?_   _Why would he take Mytho there?_   But it didn’t matter, she had to save him.   
Hopping down from the window, she hurried across the dance floor as fast as her little webbed feet could carry her, but just as she was approaching the open door, footsteps sounded in the hallway outside.  Afraid it might be Ms. Ziegenfuss, and who knew what the ballet teacher might do to a duck in her school, the little creature ducked quickly behind the door.  She peered out, expecting to spot Ms. Ziegenfuss’s somber black shoes, and instead she beheld a real life princess.  
Only it wasn’t a princess, it was Rue.  The ballerina may as well have been one, however.  She was dressed in a beautiful ball gown of crimson silk and white lace, its wide flowing skirt belling out from her waist.  Her little black bill fell open in astonishment.  _Wow!_   _Rue._ She would match Mytho perfectly in the fire festival tonight.  
The fire festival.  
Mytho!  
 _I can’t save him as a duck, I have to find water!_   She slipped quietly out of the practice room and hurried down the hallway to where she’d dropped the mopping pail.  There were a few drops glistening on its rim, and after looking around to make sure she was alone, she touched her little black bill to them.  
Bees and ants and crawling things under skin, and then Aria was sitting naked in the hallway with a bucket on her head.  She snatched it off and it made a clanging sound as she leapt up and ran barefoot into the girl’s locker room, fetching her clothes from where she’d hidden them when Fakhir had chased after her.  She dressed in a rush, and was still straightening her sweater when she ran back into the hallway and almost collided headlong into Rue.  
 “Oh, um hi!” she greeted the girl in surprise.  
Rue’s eyes went wide, “Hello Duck,” she returned the greeting with a soft smile.  
 “You’re looking for Mytho, right?” Aria spoke without thinking.  
Rue’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, “How do you know that?”  
Aria blushed, “Oh, um, well you see.  The truth is I was kind of on cleaning duty as punishment so I was here cleaning not too long ago and Mytho was here too, and he said he was going to practice dancing with you.”  
 “So where’s Mytho?” Rue asked with a sigh, sounding bored.  
Chewing her lip nervously, Aria cast her eyes about.  “Oh, I think he stepped out for a bit.”  
Rue smiled slightly, “What, you didn’t go chase him down like you did the other day?”  
Aria shifted uncomfortably, “Oh, well….”  
 “And then you suddenly disappeared for some reason.”  
She wavered in place, “Oh, yeah, sorry.  I—uh—I don’t like spiders, and I thought I saw a big spider, like a _really_ big one.  So I ran, and when I went back no one was there so I figured you found Mytho and—”  
Rue turned smartly and strode away toward the door, “If you happen to see Mytho tell him I’ll be going on ahead to the square.”  
 “Oh, okay.  Hey Rue!” she called out after the retreating girl.  Rue stopped to look at her with a lifted brow.  “Mytho will come and find you,” she said a bit wistfully, “I’m sure he will.  You’re like a real princess, and you really suit each other, so I’m sure you’ll get the golden apple too.”  
Something soft and vulnerable shown out of Rue’s eyes for just a moment, transporting Aria to another time and place.  
_“Do you really think the Prince will come?”  
_ _“He would never miss it, and I’m sure he’ll choose you for the golden apple too.”  
_ _“…oh I should think he’d dance with you.”  
_ _Merry laughter…  
_ _“…I’ll take the shield wall and leave the faery dancing to you.”  
_ Rue was dressed like a princess then too, wasn’t she?  What were they talking about?  The war right?  Against the Raven?  For a moment she saw it clearly, and then the jolt of pain that exploded in Aria’s head took her breath away and wiped the image clean.  A bright flash of light flared behind her eyes, burning out the world. 

 


	10. Das Blaue Licht

**_The Blue Light_ **

****

     When she blinked, Aria saw that Rue was gone and the hallway was empty.  She was dazed, staring at the door wondering what had just happened.  _I was doing something important right?  
_      Gradually she recalled Fakhir dragging Mytho away, and seeing him take Mytho into the library.  _And Rue was here too, wasn’t she?_   Aria didn’t know.  She started to shiver, suddenly bewildered.  “What’s going on?” she whispered.  But there were no answers to be found, and it didn’t really matter what was happening with her.  She had to save the Prince.  
     With that thought in her mind, and the pendant burning at her throat, Aria hurried out of the ballet school and up the paved walk to the library.  The huge wooden entry loomed before her and she cracked one heavy door open, peering inside.  She’d never been in here before.  The building gave her chills and a creepy feeling tickled its way down the back of her neck.  She seemed to hear a hollow rushing as of wings, and smell a strong tang of iron on the air.  For one dazzling moment she was looking at a gory sight, and in the next a flash of white light had burned away the memory of it.  
     _Sheesh, relax!_ she scolded herself.  _It’s a library, not a prison.  Students study in here all the time._   Somehow that wasn’t a very comforting thought.  She crept inside, stepping carefully so as to make no noise as she wandered further into the labyrinthine interior.  She had no idea where to start looking for Fakhir and Mytho.  There wasn’t even a whisper of noise to indicate there was anyone else in the building with her.  She chose a hall at random, propelled by the pulsing pendant, and turned into it.  Just as she rounded the corner, a door at the end opened and she ducked back.  
     Fakhir stepped out of the room at the end of the hall, “You stay in there and behave yourself,” he spoke into the dark room beyond the door he held.  
      “Why?” Mytho’s voice echoed out of that room.  
      “Punishment,” Fakhir muttered.  
     _What is he doing?_ she wondered in shock.  _He’s not actually locking Mytho up into a dark room is he?  What kind of a person_ does _that?  
_       “I’m sorry,” Mytho’s voice called out, “Don’t be mad, Fakhir,” he pleaded.  “I’ll do as you say.  Without you, Fakhir, I—”  
     Fakhir didn’t wait to hear what the Prince had to say.  Abruptly he closed and locked the door.  
     Acting on sheer impulse, Aria stepped boldly into the hall with her hands on her hips.  “What are you doing?” she demanded angrily.  
     Fakhir did a quick double-take, spinning to face her as if she were a threat.  
      “ _Punishment?!?”_ she parroted.  Possessed by something more powerful than herself, Aria charged down the hallway.  “Why do you always do such terrible things?”  And then despite the fact that she’d never picked a fight in her life, not even to defend herself, Aria shoved him bodily out of the way.  He stumbled at the force of her attack and fell to the ground.  His eyes widened in astonishment, but she turned quickly to the door and grabbed the handle.  It wouldn’t budge.  _Curse him, he locked it!_    
      “Mytho!” she called out to him, closing both hands over the door handle and pulling with all her strength.  “Rue’s waiting for you!”  It was no use, she stepped back and kicked at the door.  It buckled once but didn’t budge.  “You finally have some shards of your heart back now,” she called to him desperately, reaching for the handle once more.  “You don’t have to listen to Fakhir anymore!”  
     A hand closed like a vise over her wrist and Aria looked up in horror at Fakhir.  
      “Shards of his heart?” Fakhir growled.  His eyes practically glowed with hate.  “ _You!_ I’ve see you around.  They call you Duck, don’t they?  Just what do you know?”  
     Aria stared into his burning green glare, her mind suddenly blank.  “N-nothing really.”  
      “Come to think of it you asked me about the Prince and the Raven that one time,” Fakhir remembered.  He shoved her away from the door, his hand holding her wrist with bruising force.  “You _know_ ,” he hissed.  “You know that Mytho is actually a Prince from inside a story.”  
     Wanting to back away but held fast by Fakhir’s implacable grip, she could only gape at him in horror.  
      “Did Rue tell you?” he demanded darkly.  Violence was written in every line of his stance as he continued to steer her backward by her captured wrist.  His movements were sinuous, predatory.  
     Aria could hear her blood rushing in her ears.  _Rue?  Rue and Fakhir both know Mytho’s secret!?  
_      Fakhir’s other hand snaked out and now he held both her wrists and she was pinned up against the wall with her hands restrained over her head by his iron grip.  He had to bend down to look her in the eye with that dark and dangerous glare.  “Are you the one?” he demanded.  “Are you restoring the Prince’s heart?”  
     Aria’s face paled suddenly and she knew in her bones that she was standing on the edge of a very high cliff—a cliff Fakhir was more than ready to shove her over.  “I—I d-don’t—”  
     His sneering glare swept over her and his lip curled.  “How could you be?” he murmured, speaking almost to himself.  “You’re nothing but an eyesore.  Useless.”  
     Chin trembling, Aria fought against the tears that were burning her eyes.  
     Fakhir bent closer, his face only inches from her own.  “Listen very carefully, _Duck._   Mytho has no need of a heart!”  
      “Has no need of a heart?” she repeated in shock.  “What are you saying?  There’s no way!”  
      “And just what do you know?” he shouted in her face, causing her to cringe back.  “I know everything about Mytho, and you, what do you know?”  
     What did she know?  Nothing really.  She was only a duck.  She’d known him less than a week now, right?  White light pounded in her head.  _“You’ll never know how much I love you…”  
_      _“You’ll never know…”  
_      _“You’ll never know…”  
_      _“…never know…”  
_      Her tears sprang free as the white light throbbed into a pounding headache.  “Well sure, I may not know anything about Mytho,” she admitted, her voice brittle and shaking.  “But if he’s missing his heart he won’t know how it feels to be happy or in love.  That’s why—”  
      “Forget it,” he growled, “Even if he regains shards of his heart, I’ll seal him away.  If I shut him away in the darkness, he’ll become numb even to the dark.  Numb to all sensation he’ll stop feeling altogether.”  
      “That’s just—that’s just terrible of you!” she choked out.  
      “Don’t let your ignorance carry you away,” he sniffed.  He released her as suddenly as he’d grabbed her.  “You can pull on that door all you want, but you’ll never open it.”  He dangled a key in front of her face and then snatched it away.  Turning smartly, he quit the corridor and a few moments later she heard the library doors fall shut.  
     Aria waited until he was gone; her back still pressed up against the wall.  Only when she heard the doors close did her knees give out and she slid down the wall to the floor, shaking all over.  Her heart was drumming in her chest like a freight train, and she pressed her hands to her temples until the pounding headache had subsided and her tears had dried and grown cold.  
      “Aria?” a voice spoke tentatively from the other side of the door.  
     Fresh tears burned at her eyes, “I’m here,” she whispered, struggling to keep her emotions in check.  
      “Thank you,” he answered, and after a moment of silence, “for not leaving me alone.”  
     More tears brimmed over and she wrapped her arms around herself feeling utterly useless.  _Is Fakhir right?  Am I sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong?_   But the Prince had thanked Princess Tutu for restoring his heart, so it was right to do so.  Wasn’t it?  
     A distant sound entered her awareness, hollow and tinny but unmistakable.  The sound of a barrel organ.  _Miss Edel!  She helped me before, she could help me now!  
_       “Mytho,” Aria spoke up as she got to her feet, “I’m going to get you out of there.  I’ll be right back, I promise.”  
     There was a hesitation of silence long enough for Aria’s heart to break and then, “Okay.”  
     She hurried away, following the sound of the barrel organ into the quad where Edel stood just beyond the steps of the library.  All of her anguish bubbled to the surface, “Miss Edel!” she cried out, throwing herself down the stairs two steps at a time in search of comfort.  
      “A flame can illuminate the darkness, but without the darkness its glow cannot be seen,” Edel offered by way of greeting.  She looked down at the girl at her side, “Are you afraid of the dark?”  
     Aria stopped short in her tracks.  
      “I see you are in the darkness of uncertainty, but if you wish to shine for someone, you must not fear the darkness.”  
      “I see, you mean I shouldn’t fear what I don’t understand,” Aria intuited quite astutely.  “Right?”  
     Edel smiled at her, she pointed toward the library, “A path is open to you.”  
     Aria traced the direction of her finger and saw a broken window.  Judging by its position it should be a way into the stacks where Fakhir locked Mytho, but… “Miss Edel, I can’t fly.  Not even as a duck.”  Her downy, unfledged wings could never lift her up.  “And when I get in there I’ll need to be a girl, and I’ll need my clothes, and…” but when she turned back around Edel was gone.  _How does she do that?  
_      Aria looked back at the window again, and then slowly she looked around at the empty quad.  There really was no one in sight.  It was a Sunday, the school was empty.  So… “Oh heck,” she swore, realizing what she had to do.  “If I get caught I’m not just getting detention.  I’ll get expelled.”  _And then probably committed._   Still, there wasn’t any way around it.  If Edel had stuck around she could have helped, but clearly _that_ wasn’t an option.  
     Aria sighed and crossed the quad over to the broken window.  It wasn’t so far up the wall, and there were wide spaces of mortar here between the bricks.  Grinding her teeth together, Aria dug her fingers into the wall and started to climb.  It wasn’t exactly easy, but it wasn’t impossible either.  Still, by the time she was perched high on the windowsill, her fingers were torn and bloody, and her ivory sweater was soaked with sweat.  She braced herself with one foot in the sill and looked around the empty quad once more, praying there wasn’t a stray student or faculty member looking out one of the windows in the surrounding buildings.   
     As quickly as she could without tumbling off, Aria started taking off her clothes—shoes and socks first—shoving them through the hole in the broken window.  “Quack!” she squawked, hoping she didn’t tumble down in the transformation because climbing that wall naked didn’t sound too appealing. But no, she sat suddenly as a duck on the sill looking up at the hole in the glass.  It was sharp and jagged and she’d only have one shot at doing this right without impaling herself.  _Oh I hope Mytho appreciates this,_ she thought to herself, as she bunched her little muscles and jumped.  
     Ducks aren’t too good at jumping.  They’re better at flying, but her little downy feathers were no good for that.  Still, she managed to make the hole and fall down into the library, landing in the pile of clothes on the floor.  The force of her fall knocked the breath out of her.  She poked her downy little head up and looked around.  There was the door Fakhir had locked, but where was Mytho?  _He’s not here?  
_      Toddling forward clumsily, her long legs tangling in loose clothing, the little duck explored into the shadowy cavernous depths.  Or she would have, for that was her full intention, but no more had she taken three steps forward then the floor began tilting beneath her feet.  _“Quack!”_ she squawked, the sound more a squeak when the floor fell out beneath her feet.  She flapped her downy wings uselessly at her sides as the world opened up into depthless darkness and she went plunging downward into void.  Cold air rushed up past her as the little duck, amidst all her garments, fell down … down … down.  
     She hit the ground hard and went tumbling down a long slope, squawking the whole way until at last she landed in a tangled heap.  She lay there, battered and disoriented, staring up into interminable darkness.  _Where am I?_   Nothing but shadow surrounded her on all sides.  High overhead a single spark of light grew, drawing her attention.  It seemed to swell, then fall, landing with a wet splat on her forehead.  The now-familiar sensation of a thousand bees crawling under her skin swept through her and Aria sat up.  
     Cold chills ran up her arms and legs and she drew her knees up to her chest.  “Hello?” she called out.  Her voice echoed eerily.  Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and the world around her expanded.  She sat at the bottom of a long stone staircase.  Around her, arches were supported by stone pillars, and corridors led off in all directions.  It was silent as a grave and about as welcoming.   
     Aria scrambled to her feet, pulling on her clothes and trying to see everything at once.  A light flared suddenly, and one by one, a row of torches set in sconces in the pillars, lit themselves.  Aria froze in place, balanced on one leg as she was sliding on her wooden clog.  The light was even more alarming than the darkness.  The flickering shadows that it cast upon the stone walls made the cavernous chamber seem suddenly alive.  A surge of heat flamed against her chest and Aria looked down at her glowing pendant, “There’s a heart shard down here,” she murmured.  _Is that where Mytho went?_   Looking up, she saw a lone hallway lit with glowing torches.  A ghostly laugh emanated from the shadows, ringing around the chamber.  
     Aria jammed on her shoe and squinted into the flickering shadows.  She started toward the lit corridor.  “Who’s there?” she called out, her voice echoing hollowly, “Mytho?  Are you there?”  
      “I’m just a little thing, but I flood the entire room,” a disembodied voice answered her out of the darkness.  “What am I?”  
     Aria’s steps faltered. “A riddle?”  Icy panic slid through her veins.  _A little thing that floods the entire room?_   The horror of the pictures that filled her mind set her heart racing.  A cold stone chamber packed with people.  A heaping pile of discarded shoes.  A small child in striped pajamas.   
     _“Little duck, what are you doing?”  
_      The white light flared inside her head, washing away the images and the panic they induced.  Aria blinked.  “Wh-what?”  She looked around, before her stretched the well-lit corridor, and to the left of it stretched a long dark hallway that disappeared into nothing.  She started down the well-lit corridor, but the giggling voice grew faint.  “It’s coming from the other side,” she murmured, looking somewhat fearfully down the dark tunnel branching away in the opposite direction.  She clenched her hands into fists, “I mustn’t fear the darkness,” she told herself firmly, forcing her feet forward.   
     The heavy gloom closed around her clammily, soft moist breezes pushing against her face and she tried to banish images of spiders and rats.  “Okay,” she said mostly to distract herself.  “Just a little thing that floods the entire room?”  She walked slowly at first, her eyes picking shapes out of the darkness.  One shape in particular caught her eye and she turned toward a niche in the wall.  Revulsion filled her when she realized it was three grinning skulls.  In horror she looked up and realized that they weren’t alone and she knew without knowing how she knew exactly where they were.  The catacombs.  “A-a sneeze?” she guessed aloud, her mind wheeling in panic.  
      “Too bad,” the disembodied voice answered her, giggling.  “I am a white snake that swallows the sea, and my head is all red, what am I?”  
     Aria quickened her pace, hurrying now.  “Um, a white paint brush with red paint on it?” she guessed, her voice several octaves higher than normal as all manner of terrifying shapes manifested in the surrounding shadows.  
     The voice laughed, “Too bad,” it sang out.  “Then here’s the last one.  I become shorter the longer I stand.  What am I?”  
     Aria came to the end of the tunnel she’d been following and it opened on both sides.  Her pendant pulsed, and following the strange _urging_ , she picked the most likely direction.  It was almost completely black now but she could still make out skeletal forms and it took all her self-control not to bolt back the way she’d come.  Tiptoeing now, for fear of waking the dead, she plodded along with both hands stretched out before her face.  “So you’re um, a flower maybe?” she guessed, no longer even paying attention to the riddles.  
     The voice laughed again, “Too bad,” it called out.  “But congratulations, the person you’re looking for is here.”  
     Aria stopped suddenly.  “What? Mytho?” she exclaimed.  A single column of light shone for a moment, revealing the Prince.  He lay unconscious on what looked like a stone altar and Aria knew it was a tomb.  She started toward him but the light went out, plunging the room into darkness again.  Her feet tripped over the uneven floor and she fell to her hands and knees.  Anger and desperation mingled in her chest.  “Give him back!” she commanded.  
      “No,” the voice answered her, and the tunnel behind Aria which she realized now was a door into this room suddenly closed, forming a blank wall.  “You are to stay here as well.”  
     The panic that had been growing inside her blossomed into maturity.  The images the white light had washed away returned in force and this time no amount of pounding in her head could completely obscure the horror of them.  She was trapped in the dark, locked in a stone chamber deep beneath the earth.  Aria felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes, “I can’t do that!” she spoke in a wavering voice.   
      “You’ll be fine,” the voice said almost comfortingly, “I’m here.”  
      “Who … are you?” Aria asked, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if to warm herself.  It was strangely cold down here in these tunnels.  The darkness surrounded her and she shivered.  _Will we be trapped here in the darkness forever?  
_      Her pendant burned against her heart, a little pinprick of red light that cast some of the shadows away.  Aria closed her hand over it and it gave her comfort.  _I’m Princess Tutu,_ she reminded herself.  With an effort, she forced the panic aside and stepped forward.  _I am not powerless,_ she reminded herself.  She called upon the thrumming energy of the pendant and pirouetted into the room, transforming with each turn.  When she spun to a stop a lick of flame shot up, and then another.  Candles began lighting themselves around the round chamber.  “Are you there?” she called out, stepping forward on the points of her toe shoes.  
      “Who are you?” the voice called back to her, a note of awe in its spectral tones.  
     Tutu dipped into a petite reverence, “I am Princess Tutu.”  She could see Mytho now and part of her wanted to rush to his side.  Something was wrong, he wasn’t waking, and she wondered what their captor had done to him.  But another part of her knew she had to deal with the disembodied voice first.  
      “You’re wonderful,” the voice told her wistfully.  “Please stay and dance.  “I’ll illuminate you for the rest of your life.”  
     She stepped forward again, just slightly, settling into fourth position.  “Illuminate me?”  Worry gnawed at the pit of her stomach.  _For the rest of my life!?  
_       “That’s right!”  The light of the candles flared brighter.  
     Tutu cocked her head at the growing light, putting the pieces together.  “The little thing that floods the entire room is the light of a lamp, and the white snake with the red head that swallows the sea and becomes shorter the longer it stands is the lamp’s wick.”  She straightened up with a relevé.  “You’re a lamp, am I right?”  
      “You are correct,” the voice answered, and suddenly every candle in the room blew out and a glowing form grew before her.  Immediately the temperature in the room rose, becoming at once almost uncomfortably warm.  The figure materialized.  It was nearly a girl, her hair all fire, and her dress an inverted flame.  Behind her, with its arms wrapped about her, stood a glowing heart shard.  “I am a lamp, and a spirit, and a flame.”  
      “What is your name?” Tutu asked the spirit flame as beads of perspiration pricked up all over her body.  
      “I am known to some as Brighid, the flame in the lamp.”  
     Tutu smiled at her.  Despite the heat that came with the lamp’s light, the spirit itself seemed very polite.  “I’m very glad to meet you Brighid.  Now please,” she entreated, “give back Mytho and his heart.”  
     The burning form frowned and the heart shard disappeared, “No.”   
     Brighid glowed brighter, and the heat she threw off reflected back off the thick stone walls like an oven.  Tutu gasped at the suddenly hot air.  “Please,” she entreated.  “He cannot stay here with you, the flame is too—”  
      “No!” the spirit said again, growing hotter and brighter.  “You shall not leave.”  
     With each passing heartbeat the temperature of their stone tomb continued to rise.  It was growing difficult to breathe, either because of the heat, or because the flame was consuming all the oxygen in the room.  Knowing every second counted, Tutu pressed on and struggled to summon her magic.  She swirled her hands overhead in the mime for dance and held out one palm toward the spirit flame, “Come,” she invited, hoping to discern the spirit’s motive.  “Please dance with me.”   
      “Dance with you?” Brighid asked in disbelief.  
      “Yes,” Tutu smiled again despite the growing heat.  She wondered if the flame realized what it was doing to them.  
     The form flickered suddenly out and the room immediately began to cool.  Tutu breathed a small sigh of relief.  But then suddenly a single blazing hot spotlight shone on Tutu.  “You dance,” the voice instructed her, “I will light your steps.”  
     The force of the heat immediately made Tutu want to wilt, but her eyes went to the still form of Mytho and she nodded.  She stretched her right leg out, bending with a cambré, her hands held over each other, wrists adducted as her fingers swept the floor.  Then she straightened up and crossed her working leg over, falling with a tombé to her left before stepping out onto the point of one toe shoe.  Rising up into attitude, she turned in a slow promenade at the center of that spotlight.  
      “Your light is so brilliant,” she spoke as she danced, “why are you doing this?  What do you want?”  
      “My one wish, my only wish,” the voice told her, “is to keep on shining for someone.  I want to envelope them tenderly in warm light.”  
      “Wanting to shine for someone?” Tutu asked, gently touching the ornate pendant at her throat.  
      “That’s all, I didn’t want anything else,” Brighid’s voice answered.  “And yet, somewhere along the way, I became forgotten.  The people who were precious to me forgot about me and the light that I gave them.  No, they must not have needed me from the beginning. “  
      “That can’t be true,” Tutu assured her.  But in her mind she saw a room, the furniture all askew.  On the floor an exquisite blue cut-glass lamp lay on its side, forgotten and abandoned.  
      “I thought they enjoyed my presence, but that was only what I believed,” the voice continued.  
      “I’m sure that’s not true.”  
      “But right now there is someone who wants my light,” the voice whispered gently.  
     Tutu looked up and saw Mytho lying asleep on the marble slab at the far end of the chamber, and there with him was the blue cut-glass lamp she’d seen in her mind.  “Mytho!”  She straightened up suddenly, throwing her working leg high in a grand batement, her arms held en haut. “Is that what you want!” she cried, “To shut him away?”  
      “Yes,” the spirit answered her.  And Tutu saw the spirit reshape beside Mytho, bending over him lovingly, “I will stay here and illuminate him for all time.”  
     Tutu’s chest heaved, the exertion of dancing in the sweltering heat nearly undoing her.  “Please, remember what it was like to have your warm light shine on the people you love,” she begged, not even sure what she was saying anymore.  It was hot.  Too hot to think.  
     The spirit Brighid suddenly stood before her, shining brightly.  The room blazed with her light, sparks of flame swirling around them. “I haven’t forgotten.”  
      “Then you should know, forcing your warmth on people won’t bring joy to anyone.”  _Though any moment now it may kill me, and Mytho shortly after._ She stepped closer to the burning spirit, quashing down her own discomfort and calling upon the power that blossomed within her.  “I love the soft and tender glow of a warm light, I believe that the people who were precious to you were very happy to have you envelop them with that glow.”  Stepping forward again she wrapped her arms around the figure, unsurprised to find that it did not burn her.  Instead it felt like she held a warm summer breeze in her arms.  She took the spirit’s hands and twirled her around, “It’s sad that they no longer need you,” she murmured, “but that’s something that can’t be helped.  Because it isn’t something that you can force on people.”  Holding the spirit’s hand she stepped back and twirled twice under her own arm.  “If you want what is best for Mytho, return his heart, because that will bring him happiness.”  
      “Will it really?” the spirit asked sadly.   
     Tutu faced her in arabesque, their hands lightly clasped together, “It’s what I believe.”  
     The spirit hesitated, her flickering eyes studying Tutu’s face.  “Princess Tutu, I want to continue illuminating you.”  Then suddenly the flickering flame spirit was gone.  
     Tutu stood facing the heart shard instead as it turned toward her, “I am the feeling of affection,” it spoke, “shattered and forgotten.”  
      “The feeling of affection,” Tutu smiled at it, and it burst into a thousand glittering fragments, reforming as the familiar jewel in her hand.  “Return to Mytho now,” she instructed it, and it floated from her hands back to the Prince’s heart. 

***

     In his sleep he did not dream, had never dreamt until Princess Tutu began returning the pieces of his heart, and then his dreams were simply muted colors dark blue and grey and black.  But now a different dream burned its way into his mind, as bright and vivid as if he lived it still.  
     _A girl, a child, cradled in his arms…  
_      _“Shhh…”  
_      _She trembles, weak hands grasping his…  
_      _“Please stay with me.”  
_      _Heartbreak, pain, he can’t go where she’s going…  
_      _“I’m right here, little one.”_  
     The dream faded and Mytho opened his eyes.  He was lying in a catacomb, doubtless on someone else’s grave, and there she was before him.  He sat up, his eyes locking with hers, “Princess Tutu.”  
     She smiled at him and held out her hand.  “You should hurry now,” she told him, “Someone is waiting for you.”

 


	11. Träumen von Aurora

**_Dreaming of Aurora_ **

 

     Mytho stood alone at the window in the tower of his rooms, gazing out over the grey courtyard.  Clouds had rolled in overhead, a summer storm with all the promise of rain.  It suited his mood.  Strange to think he had moods, after so long of being able to feel nothing at all.  But now… now that Princess Tutu was returning his heart to him that was all different.  It was still fuzzy, still unclear, like the memory of a dream but they were there— _feelings._   Feelings he knew and many he didn’t, pains and emotions he had no name for.  They crowded together inside his head, casting each moment lived in shades of blue and black.  Words that would have meant nothing before now had the power to cut him like a knife.  
     _Like last night.  
_      He thought back to the catacombs, her face shining out of the darkness, and that _feeling_ as he looked into her eyes and she spoke to him.   
     _“Someone is waiting for you.”  
_      Princess Tutu was almost as elusive as the emotions that burned inside him now.  No matter how much he wanted her to stay, she flitted away from him, disappearing into the darkness of night, or the mist like a dream fading into day.  He recalled the feeling of her hand as she led him up out of that darkness, and of that hand slipping out of his.  He had no name for that emotion he’d felt as she disappeared again.  
     He hadn’t wanted her to go, he knew that much, he hadn’t wanted to leave her side.  For some strange reason the very thought of leaving her filled him with … something.  Dread maybe, but he had no name for it.   
     And then later—after—he met Rue in the Marktplatz.  Rue wasn’t happy to see him.  Not at first.  And he actually understood the look in her eyes.  It was disappointment.  _“The fire festival ended long ago,”_ she’d sighed at him.  
     But that _feeling_ was back as he looked at Rue, and without even knowing why himself, Mytho had reached out for her … and they began to dance.  He’d known exactly what to say as he never had before, _“I’m sorry.”  
_      And for a moment it was just them, just the two of them dancing together and all the darkness that had clouded his mind these past fifteen years or so seemed to lighten.  Rue was smiling at him and he—he had smiled back.  
     _“Mytho!”_ she’d gasped.  _“Mytho, what are you doing?”_   Then she’d looked into his eyes, and he saw himself in hers and hardly recognized his own face.  She pulled away from him then, and the very action had cut at him, _“For such kindness to be in your eyes, that’s—”  
_      _“Rue,”_ he’d murmured, reaching for her.  That strange … something … he’d felt as he’d smiled at her had been replaced with something darker.  He wanted to pull her back, to cast away the darkness.  To find that light again.  But she’d slapped his hand away and run from him.   
     The memory cut as deeply as the moment had, and he curled his fingers in over his palms, not quite fists, but enough to feel the pain as his fingernails bit into the skin.  _Pain._   Even that had been foreign to him once.  But not now.  It was the one thing he felt and understood acutely.  _Pain._   Not just of the physical sort, but also this nameless, writhing thing inside of him.  It was the one and only constant as he considered both Rue and Princess Tutu … and strangely enough even Fakhir.   
     His mind wandered as he considered that.  Fakhir had locked him into that dark library room alone.  Was that the reason the thought of him brought on that nameless pain?  No, it was something else.  Something foreign, something not quite …  
     A face flashed in his mind, almost Fakhir’s but different, covered in blood, still as death.  And that pain.  He clutched at his head as it sliced into his brain.  Something … something he should remember.  _Wandering, aimless, searching … Nothing but bodies and blood … and silence.  
_      Dreams, all dreams, these things he saw in his mind.  A life he might have lived, or perhaps dreamt of living.  He couldn’t parse the images out into any kind of sensible pattern.  And the emotions that accompanied them were equally confusing.   
     A wet drop of rain pattered against the window, drawing him back to the moment.  
      “So, you’re awake,” Fakhir’s voice spoke up behind him, his roommate climbing the stairs into the tower.  
     Mytho turned his head slightly to see Fakhir approach him, rumpled and unkempt from sleep.  Mytho had known Fakhir longer than anyone else, and when he looked at Fakhir there was that _feeling_ again, and the flash of that face in his mind that was Fakhir and wasn’t.  What did any of it mean?  “Fakhir?”   
     He leaned lazily against the window, eyes on the rain, fingers restlessly drumming an uneven rhythm on the sill.  “What is it?”  
     Mytho turned to face him, “I wonder what it is I think of you Fakhir.”  
     Fakhir straightened up, the skin tightening around his eyes, pupils blown wide.  These small physical nuances Mytho had always noticed before, but now he knew what they meant.  _Anxiety.  Anger._    
      “When I think of Rue,” Mytho went on, carefully now.  “When I think of you, Fakhir, and when I’m thinking about Princess Tutu.  Each one makes me feel different.  But I don’t know what names I should give these feelings.  Tell me Fakhir, don’t I need to know what they are?”  
     Anger won out over anxiety in those dark green eyes, and Fakhir narrowed his gaze, brow knitting together while he glared at Mytho.  “Stop brooding on nonsense!” he snapped.  
      “But…”  
     Fakhir crossed the small space between them, “Listen to me you useless good-for-nothing—”  
     _“—piece of shite!”  
_      _A shield tossed to the ground, clattering against the cobbles, its strap cut clean through.  
_      _“No, please!  I can explain!”  
_      _A woman’s tears.  
_      _Fakhir, not Fakhir, a face he should know…  
_      _“Leave it be!”  
_      _Anger.  Pain.  Betrayal.  The face of a friend, an upraised sword, the warm splash of blood on his face.  A woman screams…_  
     Fakhir’s hand closed roughly on Mytho’s chin, jerking his face around and jolting him back into the moment.  Mytho met his gaze, and something stopped Fakhir’s tirade in its tracks.  
      “What’s this?” his roommate whispered in surprise, “Are you trembling?”

***

     Aria lay awake on the hard planks of the floor of her room staring up at the play of shadow and light on her ceiling.  Beside her, the Brighid lamp which she’d carried up out of the catacombs was burning brightly away, but inside her head a thousand shadows gathered.  She sighed disconsolately.  She’d hadn’t slept at all last night.  She’d walked back to her room in a daze after leaving the fire festival.  As Tutu, she’d led Mytho up out of the catacombs before disappearing to return to her normal self, and then followed him to the Marktplatz.  She’d seen him dance with Rue.  And she’d seen him smile.  For _her_.  
     _He’s never smiled for me,_ the thoughts tumbled one after another in her head.  _As Princess Tutu I’ve worked to return his heart to him and not once a smile, but…_ “I guess for Rue he’ll smile like that.”  
     And a memory, something the strange white light in her head hadn’t the power to burn away.  A yearning, a soul-deep desire to see Mytho smiling down at her, just her, just … _one last time…  
_      Fakhir’s words cut into that memory, “ _Even if he regains shards of his heart, I’ll seal him away.  If I shut him away in the darkness, he’ll become numb even to the dark.  Numb to all sensation he’ll stop feeling altogether…”  
_      Tears filled her eyes and she dashed them away with one angry hand.  “There’s no way Mytho doesn’t need a heart!” she exclaimed, “I don’t care what Fakhir thinks.  He’s wrong!  He doesn’t know Mytho like I do!”   
     But how much did she really know him?  That thought gnawed away at her.  In her arms she held an old stuffed duck, a companion from a childhood that was no more than false memory, and she clutched it closer to her chest as if for comfort.  Fakhir was right about one thing, he’d known Mytho a lot longer than she had.  Her entire experience with him could be narrowed down to a few fleeting encounters and in most of those she wasn’t even herself … she was Princess Tutu.  So what was real and what wasn’t?  And what did she really know about anything?   
     Angrily she got up from the floor and looked out her window, throwing the curtains wide open.  It was raining now, dreary grey clouds blotting out the summer sky as warm drops drummed against the window.  Gazing toward the boy’s dorm she saw a pale white figure standing in the central tower of the dorm.  “Mytho?” she murmured.  She leaned an elbow on the windowsill and rested her chin in her hand, _I’ll get your heart back for you,_ she vowed.  
     Another figure joined Mytho in the window and she saw Fakhir.  Something dark and rebellious stirred in her soul.  “Just what is he plotting?” she muttered furiously, “tricking Mytho into obeying him.”  She climbed up to sit in the windowsill, still clutching the stuffed duck.    _Or is it something else completely?_   There were rumors—there were always rumors around Gold Crown Academy—some suggesting some rather scandalous things about the nature of Fakhir’s relationship with Mytho.  Aria was pretty sure she didn’t want to believe any of them.  “Whatever you’re plotting it’s no use,” she growled under her breath, clenching her hands into fists.  “Princess Tutu will get all the shards of Mytho’s heart back, you’ll see!”  
     There was a knock on her door, “Duck!” Piqué called.  “Who are you talking to?”  
     Aria’s head whipped around as her eyes went to the door.  “Nobody!” she called out reactively, tossing the duck up onto her loft bed and jumping down out of the windowsill.  She hurried to the door and threw it open, pasting a smile on her face, “No one, just myself.”  
     Piqué rolled her eyes as she stepped past Aria into the room.  “Still in your nightgown?” she demanded, “Do you have any idea what time it is?  And you look like you slept in a haystack.”  
     Aria glanced at her reflection in the mirror and had to admit that she did look pretty awful, red curls awry and sticking out in all directions, face paler than usual, and eyes red-rimmed.  Of course, she hadn’t slept in a haystack.  As a matter of fact she’d slept on the floor.  When she’d slept.  
      “What’s this?” Piqué asked, toeing the blanket and pillow still pooled under the window.  “Did you fall out of bed again?”  
     It was the _again_ that was kind of depressing.   
      “Is this a new lamp?” Piqué asked, bending down to pick up the Brighid lamp.  “Sheesh, it looks old.”  
      “Oh, yeah,” Aria rushed over and took the lamp back, setting it on her side table, “That old junk dealer in town was going to throw it out.  I thought it was pretty.”  
      “Huh,” Piqué shrugged, her attention shifting from the lamp to Aria.  “Are you okay?”  
      “Of course I am,” Aria forced a smile.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”  
      “Well I thought you might have been disappointed about not getting to go to the fire festival.”  
     Surprise coursed through her.  “Oh that?”  Honestly, missing the fire festival hardly even registered on her list of disappointments.  “It wasn’t that important.  I’ll go next time.”  
      “Oh,” Piqué seemed surprised.  “Well you better get ready then, class will be starting soon.  Lillie and I will wait while you get dressed.”  
      “Thanks,” Aria called after her as Piqué stepped back into the hall.  She got dressed quickly, working the whole while to school her thoughts into less gloomy directions.  It seemed to take a whole lot more effort than it used to.  
      “Wow, did you lose your hairbrush?” Lillie asked when Aria joined them in the hallway.  
      “No,” she ran a hand through her curls self-consciously.  She’d tried to tame them actually, but pressed for time, she’d just pulled her hair back into a messy braid.  “Does it look that bad?”  
     Lillie’s eyes went wide.  “Nope,” she shook her head a little too quickly.  “It looks fine, let’s hurry to class.  We’re going to be late.”  
     Piqué looped her arm through Aria’s on one side, and Lillie the other and they trotted her down the stairs at a quick pace.  Aria managed to glimpse only a fleeting glance at her hair in the mirror in the foyer as they hurried outside, and even in that brief glance she had to admit Lillie might have a point.  
      “What is going on?”  Piqué muttered with a note of complaint as the three girls had to fight their way through the unusually crowded street outside of the dorms.  
     A throng had gathered, students and townspeople alike, around something posted on the wall that enclosed the students’ dorms.  Curiously, the trio pushed their way through until they could see it.  It was a poster featuring a slim ballerina posed in arabesque with a rose in her hand.  Printed along the top were the bold words, ELEKI TRUPPE written over DORNRÖSCHEN.  
     _Huh, a travelling ballet company?_   Aria wondered, pressing closer through the crowd.  Her eyes strayed to the face of the ballerina on the poster and a cold shock settled over her.  For a fast second she felt like she must know the woman.  She pushed her way through the crowd, drawing even closer to the poster, almost mesmerized by the printed ballerina’s curiously familiar face.  Maybe she was an old almnus of Gold Crown?  Maybe Aria had seen her picture around the school somewhere?   
      “Do you know her?”  Aria asked Piqué in a daze.  
      “Know who?” Piqué shot her a strange look.  
      “Her,” Aria pointed at the poster again.  
      “How could I?  It says here it’s a travelling troupe from Austria.”  
     But Aria couldn’t shake the feeling of familiarity that was washing over her.  _Summers at the lake, a smiling face…  
_      A flash of white light exploded behind her eyes.  The sense of familiarity disappeared, but still Aria stared on, feeling for certain that there was _something_ she should know.  
      “Come on,” Lillie’s voice cut through her reverie.  Her friend had Aria by the arm.  “You’re going to be late to practice, and you’re already on probation.”  
     Casting one last look back at the poster, Aria felt a prickling sensation crawl down her spine.  _What is going on?_   She couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that dogged her heels all the way to school.

***

     Idiot.  He should have known better.  He should have never left the girl in the library yesterday.  He _should_ have dragged her out by the hair and made sure she stayed gone.  Fakhir still had no idea how she’d managed to get Mytho out of that locked room.  All he knew was that when he returned with food for Mytho, he’d unlocked the door to find the room empty—the girl and Mytho both gone.  Mytho he tracked hours later, finding his roommate at the site of the bonfire at St. Godfrey’s.  He’d watched the interaction with Rue, and was certain now that the shards of the Prince’s heart were being returned to him.  
     He never found the girl.  Nor did he care, except in passing curiosity on the locked door mystery she’d presented him with.  But that was only passing curiosity, and he had far more pressing matters to deal with.  Like the mystery of this mythical Princess Tutu, and the consequences of a Prince with his heart returned.  Although the girl had mentioned pieces of his heart.  And she’d asked about the Prince and the Raven.  There was a slim, outside chance she could be Princess Tutu.  _But then if that were true, why did she let me overpower her in the library?_ All the evidence he had of Tutu suggested a formidable presence, and _Duck…_ Duck was little more than a pestilence.  He didn’t need the hand servant.  He needed the Princess.  
     _Princess Tutu.  
_      He knew the story of course, of the Prince who shattered his heart to seal away a terrible evil.  But what about Princess Tutu?  She existed in only a couple of lines of the fable, an insignificant character of an unexplored plot that did little more than provide the Prince the impetus required to shatter his heart.  Fakhir had always supposed she was little more than a metaphor.  So what bearing could such an inconsequential character possibly have now?  Where did she come from?  What did she want?  _Who was she?  
_      Fakhir’s eyes drifted over the classroom to bore into the back of Rue’s head.  _Is Rue Princess Tutu?_   He wondered.  _Is she trying to restore the Prince’s heart?_   It made sense.  She would think she’d be the one to benefit most if the Prince had his heart restored.  She could be in on it with that girl.  He’d seen them talking a time or two, and she _had_ danced a pas de deux with the brat.  And Rue always did try to act like a princess.  Still, that left him wondering how she—  
      “Mr. Suziere!”   
     Fakhir’s attention jumped back to the moment and he looked up at the black robed Professor Gottschalk who was standing near his desk.  
      “Since you are paying such close attention to my lecture, perhaps you’d like to tell the class in what year was it that the great philosopher Socrates died?”  
     Fakhir glared, not at the professor, but the room in general.  Of course he hadn’t been listening to the lecture.  What was the point?  Who cared about Greek philosophy these days anyway?  “399 B.C.” he answered lazily.  
     Professor Gottschalk frowned.  “And what document records the details of Socrates’ death?” the professor asked with a little more bite in his words, clearly miffed that Fakhir was ready with an answer.  
     Fakhir turned his defiant glare on Gottschalk.  It was obvious from the professor’s tone of voice that he didn’t expect Fakhir to have an answer.  Maybe he thought Fakhir was stupid.  Maybe he thought he couldn’t read.  Either way, he was starting to become really irritating.  “Plato’s Phaedo.”  
     The professor’s face colored, “And what were his last words?”  
     A few students actually swung their heads around to see if Fakhir could answer _that_ one.  Fakhir shifted his glare from the room to the teacher.  “Don’t forget to sacrifice a rooster to Asclepios.”  
     Professor Gottschalk’s face mottled further and he turned away from Fakhir, striding up the aisle toward the head of the class.  “And tell us, Mr. Suziere, what do you think Socrates meant with these words?”  
      “He meant that he intended Crito to sacrifice a rooster to Asclepios,” Fakhir scoffed.  
     The Professor rounded on the class, his eyes piercing the room, “And why, Mr. Suziere, would Socrates ask for such a thing?”  
      “What am I?” he sneered scornfully, “Socrates’ personal butler?”  He hated Professor Gottschalk.  Hated the way he talked down to anyone he considered inferior to himself.  Hated the way he thought _everyone_ was inferior to himself.  Hated how he loved to listen to himself talk.  Most of all he hated the smug little smile he got on his face every time he asked a question he knew a student couldn’t answer.  Overcome with an impulsive hot burst of probably misplaced rage, Fakhir suddenly wanted nothing more than to see the over-pompous arrogant ass put in his place.   
     But what was the point?  Unlike Gottschalk, he didn’t care one bit about Greek philosophy, the fate of Socrates, or that damn rooster.  None of it mattered, only Mytho mattered, and none of these idiots had any idea why.  
     The professor narrowed his eyes at Fakhir in a deadly glare.  “Mr. Suziere, you may be a star on the stage, but in here you are at best a second-rate scholar.  If you cannot answer the question, then I am afraid I must—”  
     Fakhir moved quickly to cut the professor off before he could issue some ludicrous punishment like docking his grade.  Losing his class placement could mean losing the meager scholarship that had him attending this damn school—it’s something Gottschalk wouldn’t be above pushing for.  And that would mean losing his situation with Mytho.  He’d lost track of Mytho too many times of late, and every time the idiot was out of his sight something else seemed to go wrong.  He couldn’t afford to lose any time now.   
      “Anyone who’s actually read Plato’s Phaedo knows that Socrates didn’t care about his own death,” Fakhir muttered.  “He only cared that his _logos,_ his words, would live on forever.  He could have asked Crito to sacrifice any animal to any god, but he asked for a rooster and he asked for Asclepios.  Asclepios wasn’t even a god, he was a hero who was killed by the gods because he had the power to bring the dead back to life,” although Fakhir spoke in his usual bored tone, his eyes shot fire at Gottschalk.  “Hero cults of Asclepios would sacrifice a rooster because it was a symbol of resurrection.  Kill a rooster at dusk, wake to its crow at dawn.  So Socrates wasn’t asking for a sacrifice to pay homage or make reparation to the gods, he was asking for immortality.  He didn’t get it physically, obviously.  The man’s dead.  But here we are almost twenty-four hundred years later still talking about him, so Socrates did achieve the only immortality that really mattered to him.”  
     Deep silence fell over the classroom as the other students barely dared to breathe in light of Fakhir’s defiant speech.  The professor glared down from his position at the head of the class.  “An interesting interpretation,” he growled through clenched teeth.  
      “But hardly in agreement with that of Freiderich Nietzsche,” Fakhir went on, a little bite to his words now.  Who the hell was Gottschalk to think he was better than everyone anyway?  “Nietzsche believed that Socrates meant that death was a cure to the ills of life.”  He shrugged, “Then again, why be coy about it?  Socrates may not have believed the traditional interpretations of the gods, but he wasn’t impious.  He owed a debt, and asked Crito to settle it for him like any man would settle the debt of his friend once he’s dead.  There may have been no more meaning to his words than that.  In point of fact, no one knows what Socrates meant.  And no one ever will.”  
     The look the professor shot at him just then was so acidic it could have killed all the fish in the Rhine.  “Mr. Suziere!  You can—”  
      “Yeah, yeah,” Fakhir grumbled, grabbing up his books and rising from his desk, “I’ll walk myself to the Headmaster.”  
      “And be quick about it!” Gottschalk shouted.  
     Fakhir swept arrogantly out of the room, his head held high.  As he passed Rue’s desk he saw the small curl of her smug little smile and had to overcome the compulsion to sweep her notes off her desk—or throttle her.  _Idiot._

***

     Aria was late for partnering class that afternoon.  She’d borrowed Lillie’s hairbrush in the locker room in a vain attempt to tame her unruly mane, and now it was pulled up in a messy braid swirled into a high bun.  Stray curls kept coming undone and sticking to her face and neck, and she was constantly blowing them out of her eyes.  She tried not to notice Mr. Catt’s fierce glare every time his gaze chanced to stray in her direction.  He’d already called her out—loudly and publicly—for being late.  
      “Ladies, these are simple finger turns,” Mr. Catt shouted again.  He seemed unusually irate today.  “The next one of you who loses her balance will be spending four extra hours this weekend doing basics at the barre!”  
     Aria sucked in a breath and prayed she wouldn’t stumble.  Her partner, Eufemio, nodded at her encouragingly which would have meant more if he was a little steadier as a partner and didn’t reek of cheap French cologne.  Closing her eyes, she spun into the finger turns perfectly … and smacked her face on her own elbow.  
      “Ouch!” she exclaimed, her hands flying to her nose as it began to bleed.  
      “Miss Arima!”  Mr. Catt’s voice crackled through the studio.  
      “Um … is this a bad time?” A different voice interrupted.  
     Mr. Catt spun around in high dudgeon only to be brought up suddenly short.  He gaped at the woman who had just entered the studio, light flooding around her through the open outside door.  Everyone gaped at her, actually, and several students drew near.  While the crowd’s attention was drawn, Piqué and Lillie rushed over to Aria, and Eufemio handed her a kerchief for her bleeding nose.  
      “It’s nothing,” Aria reassured her worried friends.  “Who is that?”  She craned her neck to see over the crowd and was surprised when someone stepped aside and she beheld the same ballerina who was painted on the poster outside their dorms this morning.  Word of the Eleki Troupe’s presence in town had spread like wildfire across campus today, but Aria never expected to see their principle dancer in here.  
     The tall, willowy woman smiled and nodded graciously, “Forgive me,” she apologized, affecting a graceful curtsy.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I was told this is where the older dance students were today.”  
     Mr. Catt seemed to recover himself somewhat, “Ah, well, yes, you see we were just—” his words tripped over themselves and Aria was surprised to see him blushing.  
     The woman smiled, “My name is Paulamoni,” she smiled, extending a hand toward Mr. Catt.  “Paulamoni Eleki of the Eleki Troupe.  I wanted to extend an invitation to you and to your class to attend our dress rehearsal tomorrow.  I thought your older students might appreciate a glimpse behind the curtain.”  
     Mr. Catt’s face reddened further, “Why Miss Eleki, that is quite a generous offer.”  
     She dimpled prettily, “Please, call me Paulamoni.”  
      “Paulamoni,” he returned with an ingratiating smile.  
      “Oh brother,” Piqué rolled her eyes, “Could he be any more obvious?”  
     Paulamoni turned her bright eyes on the crowd of students who were curiously eavesdropping.  “I’d also like to extend an invitation to all of your junior and senior students to attend our opening night performance.  I remember being a young student myself, and the thrill of watching new shows.  I know our little theater performance is hardly equal to Gold Crown Company’s showcases, but I do hope you will enjoy it.”  
     Excited exclamations sounded all around as the students reacted delightedly.   
      “Oh can you imagine!” Lillie squealed.  “What will I wear?”  
     Piqué rolled her eyes again.  
     Aria dabbed the last of the blood from her nose, considered giving Eufemio his kerchief back, then looked at it again and decided against it.  “I’ve never seen Sleeping Beauty before,” she murmured.  
      “Why, we would be delighted to accept your generous offer!” Mr. Catt practically purred.  “Is there anything we can do to repay such generosity?”  
      “Well, I—” her eyes swept the room as if absently until they settled on Aria.  She paused and something seemed to click in Aria’s head.  
     _Summers at the lake, Christmas holidays skating over pristine ice…_ A flash as bright as the sun exploded behind her eyes.  
      “I suppose,” Paulamoni hesitated, seeming distracted.  Her eyes held Aria’s for a moment longer.  “Perhaps your students would like to show off some of their talents for me?”  
      “Why, what a wonderful idea!” Mr. Catt clapped his hands together.  He looked around at his class, “Are there any volunteers?”  
     No one spoke up.  Aria pressed a pained hand to her head, trying to block out the flash of light and recall what she’d been thinking about.  It was important, wasn’t it?  
      “If there are no volunteers,” Mr. Catt ventured, “I will select someone.”  He pointed toward his best student, “Miss Ker—”  
      “You!”  
     Aria’s head snapped up to see Paulamoni pointing right at her.  _How does this keep happening to me?_ she panicked.   
      “What do you say?” the stately ballerina asked kindly.  
     Still in a state of shock at being called out, Aria opened and closed her mouth but no sounds came out.  Beside her, Eufemio was nodding eagerly, excited to show off his more-than-humble skill for so glamorous an audience as Miss Paulamoni Eleki.  “No, no,” Aria shook her head quickly.  She stamped her foot down hard on Eufemio’s and he cried out in shock.  “You see, my partner hurt his foot, we couldn’t possibly—we can’t—” she met Fakhir’s eyes where he stood glaring beside Mytho and Rue and quickly clammed up.  
      “You heard her say it yourself!” Mr. Catt shrilly responded, “She couldn’t possibly, now why don’t I select another student to dance—”  
      “Yes, I’m sorry,” Paulamoni spoke up seeming suddenly contrite.  “I suppose it was too sudden.  Well, I guess I will see you all at the rehearsal tomorrow.”  
     Aria’s eyes were suddenly attracted to a faint red glow just over Paulamoni’s shoulder.  It seemed to be standing in the door of the studio on the outside mezzanine which Paulamoni had left open.  For an instant her pendant grew warm and then cooled.  _Is that a heart shard?_   She wondered.  For a moment she saw a flash and it was there.  And then it was gone.  
      “I’m sorry to have interrupted your class, I hope you’ll be there tomorrow,” she waved one last time before turning gracefully away.  
      “We will, gladly!” Mr. Catt called after her, his prior irritation now entirely absent.  
      “Sheesh, one look at a pretty girl and suddenly he’s all Mr. Good Guy,” Piqué muttered rebelliously.  
      “What was that Miss Piqué?” Mr. Catt spoke up without looking in her direction.  
      “I said let’s get back to practice,” she spoke up quickly.  
      “Yes,” he mused, “I thought that’s what you said.” 

     The picture of the heart shard, like an afterimage burned into the back of her eyelids, stuck with Aria all through the rest of the class.  She wasn’t sure if she had imagined the entire thing.  How could a heart shard have possibly infected Paulamoni if she’d just arrived in town anyway?  And if it had, why hadn’t her pendant reacted to it and driven her after it?  And then there was Paulamoni herself, why did she seem so tantalizingly familiar?  
     Answers weren’t forthcoming, and even Eufemio, who normally tolerated her absentmindedness, was thoroughly annoyed with her by the time class was over.  Of course, that might also have something to do with the fact that she’d bruised his foot and bloodied his best silk handkerchief.  
     When classes let out for the day, she found herself lingering, wanting to get one more look at the place where she thought she’d seen the heart shard.  So instead of joining Piqué and Lillie at the pizzeria, she climbed the outside stairs instead and stood on the wide stone mezzanine gazing at the door to the studio.   
     Of course, there was nothing there.  “But there was something there, wasn’t there?” she wondered aloud, gripping her pendant in one hand.  She walked up to the place where she’d seen the heart shard standing, but her pendant didn’t glow, or even become warm.  “It wasn’t in Miss Eleki was it?” she asked of herself, “Then why was it here?  Or was it here?”  
      “Duck!”  
     She turned around in surprise to see Eufemio climbing the stairs.  “Uh, hey,” she greeted him uncertainly as he joined her on the mezzanine.  “Did I forget something?”  
      “No, no,” he hurried to say, waving his hand before his face, “Nothing like that.”  He glanced around at their surroundings.  “What are you doing up here by yourself?”  
      “Oh!” she looked around too, “Um, nothing.  That is, well, obviously I’m doing something but it isn’t anything really, I just thought I saw something out here earlier only I guess it isn’t here anymore, or maybe it never was, but it doesn’t really matter now does it since I don’t really know.”  
     His expression twisted as if he were trying and failing to follow her train of thought.  “Oh,” he said, though clearly he had no idea what she was talking about.  
      “Oh, your kerchief!” she remembered, pulling the still-damp bedraggled piece of silk out of her pocket, “I got the blood out,” she said, offering it to him.  “Thank you for loaning it to me.”  
      “You keep it,” he told her, obviously flustered.  
      “Sorry about your foot earlier,” she apologized.  
      “No matter, it’s fine,” his eyes caught hers and he looked bothered by something.  “I wanted to ask you something, Duck,” Eufemio started, fidgeting nervously, “that is, Aria—may I call you that?”  
     She blushed.  The only other student to call her by her given name was Mytho.  “Sure,” she nodded.  
      “Miss Aria, I wanted to ask you, if you would like—that is, would you be my girlfriend?”  
     Aria felt herself flushing, heat rising from her collar.  “Oh!  Um, well—” she cut herself off, making a face, “I never really saw you that way Eufemio.”  
     He appeared crestfallen, “It is Fakhir isn’t it?”  
      “Fakhir?” she gasped in horror.  “Ugh, no!  He’s an arrogant, narcissistic pig with psychopathic tendencies.”  
      “Mytho then,” Eufemio sighed, “I know all the girls are in love with one or the other.”  
     She blushed an even deeper shade of red.  “I am _not_ in love with Mytho,” she quickly put in.  _Am I?_   She suddenly wanted nothing more than to get out of this conversation.  “Listen Eufemio,” she spoke quickly, “I’ll think it over okay, and I’ll get back to you.”  
     He brightened up at once, “Yes!  A good idea.  Then I shall bid you adieu for now.”  
     Still blushing, Aria brushed quickly past him and hurried down the stairs.  She didn’t slow her hurried pace until she was well past the swan fountain at the center of the quad, and only then did she chance to look over her shoulder at the ballet studio.  “Ugh!” she shuddered, “what was _that_ about?”  
     Eufemio had hardly showed any interest in her before.  In point of fact, no one had ever shown any interest in her, and Aria was perfectly content with that.  Only now her pas de deux partner had to go and make things weird.  _As if I needed something else to stress about!  
_      She turned toward the center of town, suddenly keenly feeling the urge to talk this latest development over with her two best friends.  At least this was one thing in her life they might actually be able to help her with.  But when she got to the pizzeria, Piqué and Lillie were already gone.  She looked around, wondering if maybe they were still about somewhere.  She wasn’t looking where she was going and suddenly her toes caught on the ground and she found herself hurtling face-first toward the street.  
      “Ho there!” a familiar voice spoke up, just as a pair of arms shot out and steadied her.  “Careful!  These stones should really be more even.”  
     Aria looked up into the smiling eyes of Paulamoni.  “Oh, Miss Eleki!” she found herself blushing, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to run into you.”  
      “I’m glad you did,” she laughed back, “And please, call me Paulamoni.”  
     Aria made a face, “That’s a strange name,” she said without thinking about it. _Dolt!_  She kicked herself mentally.  _You can’t say things like that to people!  
_      But Paulamoni didn’t seem to mind.  “I suppose it is,” she laughed again.  “It’s Paula properly,” she explained, “Moni is my middle name, but ever since I was a kid everyone just ran it all together.  I’ve been Paulamoni since I was younger than you.”  
      “Oh,” that made sense.  
      “Would you like to join us for dinner?” Paulamoni asked, gesturing toward a table set up outside the café where a handsome man stood waiting for her.  
      “Oh,” Aria’s face reddened.  “I couldn’t—”  
      “I insist,” the woman urged.  “I owe it to you, I think, for putting you on the spot earlier.”  She took Aria by the arm and guided her over to the table.  “This is my husband, costar, and stage manager of the Eleki Troupe, Paulo,” she introduced him.  
     It was Aria’s turn to laugh, “I’m Aria,” she presented herself.  “That’s a lot of hats to wear.”  
      “You should see backstage when the curtains go up,” he winked at her with a smile, “Chaos would be understating it.”  He gestured to an empty chair, “Please, won’t you join us?”  
     Aria hesitated again, but found herself sitting down with the couple as the waiter came to take their order.  
      “So are you a dancer, Miss Aria?” Paulo asked her politely after the waiter had scuttled away.  
      “Well, I’m in the dance program,” she hedged, “but I’m not really any good at it.”  
      “Every girl thinks she’s terrible at your age,” Paulamoni told her reassuringly.  “Oh I remember it, all awkward elbows and gangly limbs striving toward gracefulness but somehow always falling on the clumsy end of the spectrum.”  
      “Yeah well, that’s me all over,” Aria grimaced.  “I almost just gave myself my second bloody nose of the day tripping over my own feet.  And the first one I hit myself in the face with my elbow.”  
     They laughed again, and even Aria smiled.  It was _kind_ of funny.  “I guess I’m just hopeless,” she shrugged as if it didn’t bother her.  Funny thing was, for perhaps the first time ever it occurred to her that it did.  
     Paulamoni frowned, “Nonsense,” she waved Aria’s words aside.  “I saw you in your pas de deux class, granted it was only for a moment, but what I saw wasn’t hopeless.  Quite the opposite really.”  
     Aria looked up at her in awe, “You really think so?”  
      “Of course I do,” she smiled and reached for her glass of wine, taking a sip before she spoke again.  “So how is your partner’s foot?”  
      “Partner?” Aria looked at her blankly.  “Oh Eufemio?”  She couldn’t quite keep the shudder of revulsion off her face, “He’s fine.  It was nothing really.”  
      “Foot?” Paulo looked a question at his wife.  
      “The young man Miss Aria is partnered with hurt his foot in class today,”  
      “Ah, I see,” Paulo murmured.  
      “Though perhaps he isn’t the young man you’d rather be dancing with,” Paulamoni’s eyes held a twinkle in them.  
     Aria busied herself with a drink of water, face flaming.   
      “Don’t tease her,” Paulo chided his wife.  
      “Well it’s a shame, really,” she shrugged a bit sadly, “I was hoping to see you dance.”  
      “Uh, wh-why is that?” Aria asked, her nervousness rushing back.  
     The woman squinted at her, a strange look passing over her face.  “I’m not sure, really,” she mused.  “I think you remind me of someone.  Myself, perhaps, when I was your age.”  
     Paulo reached over the table and took his wife’s hand.  “You might not believe this, Aria,” he spoke to her though his eyes were on Paulamoni, “but even principal dancers like us can sometimes feel a bit hopeless, too.”  
      “Yes,” Paulamoni’s eyes were as distant as the moon, “sometimes we get lost in the politics, the technique, the hassle of the show and forget what it was about ballet that first made us love it.”  
     Aria stared at her in wonder.  “What was it that made you love ballet?” she asked before she could check herself.  
     Her hostess focused her eyes back on their young guest, “I love the story,” she smiled dreamily.  
      “Story?” Aria was taken aback.  
      “Every ballet is a story,” Paulo filled in.  “Its own drama and tragedy, with heroes—”  
      “And heroines,” Paulamoni winked.  
     Paulo grinned at her, “and villains.”  
      “Villains?” Aria asked in surprise.  
      “Of course, in Giselle it’s the queen of the Willis, in the Nutcracker it’s the Rat King, in Sleeping Beauty the evil witch.”  
     _Huh,_ Aria thought.  _So I guess if this is a story, Mytho is the hero.  Does that make me the heroine?  And who’s the villain?  
_       “What do you love, Aria?” Paulamoni asked.  There was something almost yearning in her question.  
     Aria had never really given it any thought.  She’d been in the dance school for as long as she could remember.  Except, of course, that may not be true since she was only just a bird.  But still, in those memories that were hers and not hers ballet was just something she did.  Sure she liked watching ballet, and the beautiful ballerinas as they moved so gracefully across the stage, but was that the memory of the girl or the duck?  And then she thought of Princess Tutu.  
     She smiled then.  “I like who I am when I’m dancing.”  
      “You mean you like the way it makes you feel?” she pressed.  
     Aria blushed nervously, “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”  
     Paulamoni scrutinized her face, suddenly serious.  “Tell me Aria,” she murmured, “what is it you feel when you dance?”  
      “Most of the time I just feel awkward,” she admitted.  
      “Most of the time,” the woman pressed, “but not always?”  
      “No, sometimes I—” she broke off, her thoughts still on Tutu.  “Sometimes I feel—I don’t know, I just feel … happy, and complete … and—”  
      “Perfected,” Paulamoni murmured, a knowing look in her eyes.  
      “Yeah,” Aria sighed, “kind of like that.”  
     Paulamoni sat back in her chair, “Ah Aria, do you know how many girls never achieve that feeling?” she asked, “and how many more feel it, but never describe it in their dance?  It’s a rare skill you have, I think.”  She studied Aria’s face a beat longer, “Do me a favor,” she requested, “Next time you dance, don’t think about it.  Forget the steps, forget the instruction.  Put all of that noise out of your head and let your body do what it knows to do best.  Then, I think, you’ll find that feeling you’re looking for.”  
     Paulo beamed at her across the table, reaching for her hand.  “And there’s no better way to catch that young man you’re in love with,” he said.  
     _Whoa!_   “Love!?” she squeaked.  
     Paulamoni laughed, “Well, perhaps you’re still a bit young for that!”

***

      “How did she do it, how did she _do_ it!?” the restless spirit paced anxiously back and forth before his mirror.  Shining out through the ever-falling reflective sands of time was the useless little duck and her two new friends, laughing and eating together.  The spirit threw one disgusted look at them and scowled, “How did she _do it?”_ he demanded, angrily now.  He spun toward the figure standing in the corner.  “The town is sealed, no one in or out.  Tell me puppet, how did _that woman_ break through?”  
      “The story’s progressing,” his companion replied, “Time is turning.  This is what you wanted after all, was it not?”  
      “No!” he swore and resumed his pacing.  
     _Paulamoni Eleki._  A troublesome wretch.  She wasn’t the first person to try to enter Goldkrone Towne over the years.  But she was the most persistent, and up until now easily repelled. He chewed an ethereal thumbnail, deeply disturbed at the implications of the woman’s presence.  But he was far more disturbed by the budding friendship between his special character and this _interloper._   He couldn’t afford the energy it would take to enact another memory spell on the useless little duck.  If that woman somehow … but no, it was beyond imagining.  
     _She’s outside my control,_ he realized.  _She’s entered the story of her own volition, written herself in without my permission.  Are my powers waning so soon?  
_      “You’ve reached the critical point,” his companion spoke up as if answering his silent thoughts.  “The sands of time are running out.”  
     He didn’t want to admit she was right.  But he knew she was.  He’d expended too much energy on the story thus far.  It was draining him.  That’s how the Eleki woman broke through.  Her presence could be disastrous.  
      “You should act now,” that voice from the shadows went on mercilessly.  “I believe it’s time to reveal your story’s villain, while you still can.”  
     Those words grated on his nerves and he clenched his fists.  “I will not be told how to write my own story.  And I will not be intimidated by _that woman._ Don’t you understand?” Of course, how could she understand?  How could anyone?  “Do you know what this is?  Outside influence!  That’s what it is.  This isn’t an anthology, it’s a tragedy, and it’s mine!  I must get rid of her!  But how?”  
      “I don’t think you can,” his companion sedately responded.  
      “WHAT?”  
      “She is haunted by Fear.  She is part of the story now.”

 


	12. Dornröschen

**_Sleeping Beauty_ **

 

     And you had dinner with her?” Piqué asked Aria in disbelief.  
     “With her and Paulo, yes.” Aria repeated for the second time.  
     “Paulo?” Lillie demanded.  
     “Her husband,” Aria shrugged as if it were obvious.  “I don’t know why neither of you believe me.”  They were walking with their class toward the town hall where the Eleki troupe was rehearsing and Aria was trying to fill her friends in on everything that had happened the previous evening, but they kept interrupting her with questions.  She shifted her bag to her opposite shoulder, feeling fidgety.  They were all still wearing their leotards, having just gotten out of practice, and she carried her ballet flats and towel and water in her bag over her shoulder.  They hadn’t even stopped at the locker rooms before leaving the school.  Most of the girls had pulled on sweaters and short skirts with leg warmers to cover the skimpy clothing for the hike through town.  Lille had loaned Aria a pink cardigan that clashed horribly with her hair, and she’d borrowed a short blue skirt from Piqué.  The unflattering combination made her feel like she was eight years old.  
     “You mean, you actually sat down with them and ate food?”  Piqué pressed.  
     “What’s so hard to understand about that?” Aria exclaimed with frustration.  
     “It’s just that she’s so—” Lillie broke off, looking for the right word, “glamorous.  And it’s hard to imagine you with someone—” she cut herself off with wide eyes.  
     Aria glared at her, “You mean, you can’t imagine that she’d ever waste time on someone like me?”  
     “That’s not what she meant,” Piqué hurried on quickly, “It’s just hard to believe, that’s all.  That you just ran into her like that and had dinner like it was nothing.”  
     “Well it did happen,” Aria sulked, feeling a bit put out.  She stared at Mytho’s back as he walked beside Fakhir at the head of the class.  “And so did the thing with Eufemio,” she shuddered.  
     “Well _that’s_ not hard to believe, he is a bit weird,” Piqué muttered.  
     “But how do you feel about him?” Lillie asked her almost delightedly.  
      “How do you think she feels about him?” Piqué scoffed.  
      “You don’t know, she may like him,” Lillie retorted, “After all, she’s at that age where you fall in love.  What’s wrong with that?”  
      “It is wrong!” Piqué snapped, “You’re all lovey dovey for _Mytho_ aren’t you?” she asked of Aria.  “Aren’t you?”  
      “Maybe she loves both?” Lillie gushed happily.  “She’s two-timing.”  
     Aria stared at them both aghast.  _When did I lose the train of this conversation?_   “Love!?” she exclaimed in horror, “You’ve got to be kidding me!  I’m not in love with Mytho, and I’m definitely not in love with Eufemio, and—”  
     And she walked right smack into Fakhir.  
     He turned and glared down at her, “Watch where you’re going,” he snapped as a cart clattered across the street in front of him.  His eyes narrowed suddenly, “I know you,” he hissed.   
      “No you don’t!” she squeaked, and ducked quickly behind Piqué.  
     For her part, Piqué gaped up at Fakhir wordlessly, too in awe that he was actually _speaking_ to them to say anything at all.  
     Fakhir’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but before he could say anything else, Mr. Catt’s voice broke over the crowd of students.  
      “Come along class,” he ordered somewhat irritably from the head of their procession, “We don’t want to be late.”  
     Fakhir shot her another hot glare before moving along.  
     Aria paled.  
      “What was _that_ all about?”  Lillie demanded, watching Fakhir’s retreating back.  
      “Nothing,” Aria whispered, suddenly shaken.  “Nothing at all.”  
      “It didn’t seem like nothing,” Piqué wondered.  She turned on Aria with a strange look, “Fakhir _knows_ you?”  
      “No, he doesn’t.  Not really.  We’ve run into each other a couple of times but it’s not like he even knows my name or anything.  And anyway, he’s not nice.  He yells at people, and he’s really weird about Mytho.  And I don’t really want to talk about it.”  She clammed up quickly and darted looks at her two friends who were watching her with peculiar expressions.  And then something occurred to her, something she’d never considered before.  Something Paulo had mentioned last night at dinner.  Something about ballet being a story, and this was a story too, right?  Mytho was the Prince from the story, and she was Princess Tutu.  The Hero and the Heroine.  But there was someone else right?  Someone else in every story.  
     She watched Fakhir as he walked at the head of the class beside Mytho, and remembered again his words to her in the library.  _“Even if he regains shards of his heart, I’ll seal him away.  If I shut him away in the darkness, he’ll become numb even to the dark.  Numb to all sensation he’ll stop feeling altogether.”  
_       “The villain,” she breathed.  
      “The what?” Piqué demanded.  
      “You know that story Drosselmeyer wrote?” Aria spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, “The one you were telling me about?”  
      “Yeah, what about it?”  
      “Who was the villain?” she asked in a small voice.   
     Piqué shot her a funny look.  “The Raven of course.  That’s why it’s called the Prince and the Raven.”  
      “No,” Aria shook her head, “Who was the Raven really?  What did it want?”  
      “I don’t know,” Piqué threw up her hands, “All it said was that it was crafty and cunning, and very intelligent.”  
     “Proud too, don’t forget proud,” Lillie put in.  
      “Yeah that’s right.”  
     Aria’s eyes burned into Fakhir’s silhouette.  _Crafty and cunning.  Intelligent.  Proud._   A terrible suspicion began burning in the back of her mind.

***

     He didn’t want to be here.  Nothing good was going to come from this little _field trip._   He hadn’t wanted Mytho coming at all, but Mr. Catt had made it mandatory, and Fakhir couldn’t figure a way out of it with them leaving right out of a practice like they did.  He didn’t trust this Eleki Troupe.  Who were these people and how had they gotten into Goldkrone Towne?  Nobody gets in or out of Goldkrone Towne.  Nothing good was going to come from any of this.  
     They reached the city hall where the production was being staged, and Fakhir saw Miss Eleki standing outside waiting for them.  
     Mr. Catt stepped forward with a low bow “Please accept our deepest thanks for sharing your time with us today,” he said, extending a hand toward the leading lady.  
      “Let’s dispense with formalities,” she returned his smile and handshake.  
      “I agree,” he murmured.  
     Fakhir resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  Mr. Catt was clearly smitten with the Eleki Troupe’s première danseuse.  
      “I hope you’ll make yourselves at home,” Miss Eleki welcomed them warmly.  She pivoted slightly, “I’d like you to meet my husband,” she said, indicating a tall man at her side, “Paulo.”  
     The husband smiled around at them, “Nice to meet you all,” he nodded.  
     Fakhir shot another look at Mr. Catt and could clearly see the disappointment in his eyes.  He smirked.  
      “Now come right on in,” Miss Eleki indicated with a sweep of her arm.  She led them backstage, introducing them to the other members of the cast and showing them around the costumes and props, explaining and telling stories.  
     Fakhir wasn’t interested in stories, or the backstage workings of some two-bit travelling ballet company that gave away half their seats on opening night for free.  He stood by himself off to one side, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and scowling.  Rue sidled up to him, smirking to herself.  “Poor Fakhir,” she purred, “Does this interfere with your personal designs?” she giggled.  “Things are changing, you’ve noticed?”  
      “Yes,” he growled, “I have noticed.”  
      “Us being here.  The Eleki Troupe … this never would have happened before.  But now…”  
      “Why are you talking to me?” he sighed.  “Shouldn’t you be pretending to be the prima donna with your groupies?”  
     She raised her brows at him, “Ah, I see.  You think I’m responsible for these changes.”  
      “Someone is,” he snapped, “And if I find out it’s you, nothing will stop me from acting against you.  If I have to, I’ll kill you Rue.”  
     She laughed lightly.  “How easily you speak of things like killing.  What do you know of such matters?”  
      “I know how to do it,” he answered, his voice even, “And I know that I will.  And that is enough.”  
     Not far away Miss Eleki clapped her hands together, “Alright, if all the students would please file out and take seats in the auditorium, we are about to begin our dress rehearsal.”  
     Fakhir pushed away from the wall, brushing past Rue, “Stay away from Mytho,” he repeated to her, “Or withstand those consequences.”  
     Her face tightened and she shot him a hot glare as he stepped away from her and fell into line with the other students filing out of backstage.  He stayed near Mytho and they found their seats in the first two rows in the auditorium, but Rue managed to snag the seat on Mytho’s other side.  Fakhir pretended to ignore her.  He knew she was just trying to goad him.  He didn’t like the fact that it was working.  So instead he turned his attention to the action taking place onstage.  A movement caught his eye and he watched Miss Eleki descend from the stage and make her way toward the students as the dress rehearsal began.   
     Fakhir watched disinterestedly as Miss Eleki wove a path down to where the students were seated.  She stopped at the end of his row and knelt down to speak to the girl there.  A single jolt of curiosity shot through him and he turned his head a degree or two to the right to see the girl that had caught the ballerina’s interest.  He was surprised to note that it was the same girl as before, the one that ran into him.  He recognized her now.  _Duck._   The one who’d interfered in the library.  The one who seemed to know about Mytho.  Interested now, he tuned out the excited buzz of chatter all around him, and strained to hear what Miss Eleki could possibly be saying to the girl.  
      “…I was wondering if you could do something for me,” Miss Eleki half-whispered.  
      “Why yes!”  Mr. Catt answered for her, “Miss Arima will gladly do anything for you.  Would you like her to fetch you a glass of water or a dry towel?”  
      “Neither,” Miss Eleki smiled graciously at the instructor, “I was just wondering if I could see Miss Arima dance.”  
      “What!?”  Duck and Mr. Catt exclaimed in perfect unison.  
      “It’s just that I think there’s something missing in my dancing, and I feel almost certain that Miss Arima can show me what it is.”  
      “Oh I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Duck hedged uncomfortably.  
      “What the girl said,” Mr. Catt quickly spoke up.  “Besides, she has nothing prepared.”  
      “What about the pas de deux you were practicing yesterday?” Miss Eleki asked, her eyes on Duck.  
     Duck’s face reddened, “That was nothing, really, just a few little steps.”  
      “The greatest stories always started with just a few little steps,” Miss Eleki winked at her.  
     _She seems to know her._   Fakhir realized, watching the exchange.  _How is that possible?  Who is this woman and how did her troupe get into Goldkrone Towne?  Why is she here?  And what possible connection could she have to that girl?  
_      Duck gaped, “I don’t even have a partner though,” she scrambled.  “Eufemio’s foot is still hurting him.”  
     Fakhir wasn’t the only one interested in the conversation now.  The entire class was paying more attention to the quiet side conversation than the dancing onstage.  “Say Mytho,” Rue’s voice came from a few seats down, “Why don’t you partner her for the pas de deux?”  
     Fakhir was looking at the girl as Rue said this, and he saw Duck blanch.  “What?”  
      “No.” Fakhir said firmly, rising to his feet.  Everyone looked at him, and he scrambled for half a second before making a sudden decision.  “Mytho will stay.  I’ll go.”  
     If he wasn’t mistaken, the girl turned even whiter at his words and he caught the impression that she was afraid of him.  _Good.  I will make her learn why she should fear me._   

***

      “M-Miss Paulamoni, I really don’t think I can do this,” Aria spoke through chattering teeth as she was led through the backstage area.  “I wasn’t being humble or anything last night.  I’m no good, and that pas de deux is only a handful of steps, and it’s really for a girl in toe shoes and I’d just be faking it because I don’t do partnering en pointe yet, I don’t even have my toe shoes with me even if I did know how to do it and—”  
      “Do you want to dance, Aria?” Paulamoni asked her, stopping suddenly and looking down at her with a serious expression.  “And I don’t mean just right now.  But at all.  If the last time you danced was the last time you’d ever dance, would you be happy or sad?”  
     Aria froze.  “I—” she broke off, “I don’t know.”  
     A strange look crossed Miss Paulamoni’s face.  “I wonder that sometimes.  If the last time I danced would be the last time I ever danced, would I be satisfied?  Or would I dare to challenge my own fears and dance again.”  
      “You—You’re afraid to dance?”  
     A sad smile played across the woman’s pale face, “We are all of us afraid, Aria, to fail at the things that really matter to us.”  She bent down then, putting their faces on the same level.  “You don’t have to dance, Aria.  But I wish, I wish you would so that I could see—” she broke off, “I want to see, I want to see you dance.”  
     Something in Aria’s heart melted.  She bit her lip and nodded.  If it was for this woman, even if she looked like a fool, even if she had to dance with Fakhir, if it was for this woman she would do it.  
     Paulamoni beamed at her.  
     Aria took a deep breath, dropped her bag on the floor, slipped out of her cardigan and skirt, and pulled on her ballet flats.  
      “Here,” Paulamoni produced a stiff tutu, “Try this out,” she fastened the tutu around Aria’s waist.  
     Aria ran her hands over the stiff, shiny fabric, a small smile on her face. _It’s almost like Princess Tutu’s.  
_      Taking another deep breath, she stepped out onto the stage.  Her knees trembled as she crossed the great open space, and she deliberately averted her eyes from her classmates.  She sensed that most of them were watching in morbid fascination, just waiting for her to fail.  She clenched her hands into fists.  
     Fakhir faced her across the stage, cool and austere in his usual black leotard, his open blue shirt tied carelessly at his waist.  
     _What is he thinking?_   She wondered, _why did he have to volunteer to dance with me?  I’d rather dance with anyone else._   The music started up and the question slipped out as a hiss before she could silence her own tongue.  “Why are you doing this?”  
     He glared right back at her, “Why are you?”  
     She ground her teeth together, _I have my reasons.  
_       “Idiot,” he swore.  “Just dance.”  Taking her hand he held it high and she rose up on her toes.  
     _“First step, développé croisé front.”_   Mr. Catt’s voice sounded in her head, “ _lift your leg higher Aria, and don’t wobble.”  
_      Fakhir rolled his eyes at her attempt.  He suddenly lifted her hand higher and she fell backwards, off balance.  
     _“Port de bras back.  Aria, you’re supposed to look like a graceful swan, not a gawky goose.”_   She rebalanced as Fakhir mercilessly pulled her forward by the hand he held, almost off her feet as she stepped into the next move.  _“First arabesque.  Aria!  Fix your spine, lift your leg, center your weight, now do it on your toes!”  
_      Fakhir stood behind her now, his hands on her waist, “Pathetic,” he muttered in her ear, even as he supported her in a small half turn, “Let me take this chance to make things clear.”  
      “What?” she demanded, even as Mr. Catt’s voice in her head demanded, _“penché, remember it’s all about extension.  Aria, you are meant to stretch into the pose, torso down, leg up!”  
_       “Stay away from Mytho,” Fakhir hissed above her.  
     _“Arabesque.  Hold the pose!”  
_      A smattering of giggles sounded from the watching students and Aria blushed furiously.  She knew she was doing poorly, and looked especially bad next to Fakhir who wore his talent carelessly.  But what else could she do?  Fakhir moved around her, his hands on her waist and he knelt before her in the steps of the dance, _“Penché!”  
_       “You stay away from him,” she seethed, lowering her leg and spinning away from him.  As she did, her gaze met Paulamoni’s from where she stood backstage watching the performance with wide eyes.  Another voice intruded into her mind, _“Forget the steps, forget the instruction.  Put all of that noise out of your head and let your body do what it knows to do best.”  
_      They moved together again and repeated the choreography.   
      “You don’t know what you’re messing with,” he hissed.  
     Anger flowed through her.  _“Ladies, petite reverence, gentlemen, bow like you mean it.”_   She lowered her working leg and backed away, Fakhir facing her across the stage.  _“Now promenade, Aria like a statue.  Like a statue!”_   When she took Fakhir’s hand again and lifted her leg in attitude, she shot him a murderous look while he turned her in place, she pivoting on the tips of her toes.  “I don’t know what is going on with you, but I’m not going to let you hurt Mytho.”  
      “What difference does it make to you?” he growled, releasing her hand.  
     She lifted her arms en haut.  “Because I care what happens to people,” she shot back, “unlike you!”  She spun into some supported pirouettes and heard him growl.  
      “I’m warning you, stay away.” He repeated.  
      “Or what?” she demanded.  Suddenly he lifted her in first arabesque, taking her by surprise.  _That’s not the choreography!  It’s supposed to be a développé!_   Her face reddened and she wavered.  She could feel Fakhir’s muscles clench as he compensated for her movement, hefting her overhead.  _I’ve never done a lift before, I don’t know what to do!  
_      _“Forget the instruction … let your body do what it knows to do best.”  
_      She closed her eyes and opened them, taking a single breath.  A gasp sounded from the crowd but it was distant as a strange roaring filled her ears.  A white light was growing in her mind and suddenly she didn’t feel awkward and out of place.  That feeling she had as Tutu, the feeling of being completely attuned to her body, of knowing grace and beauty.  For one instant that feeling was hers.  
      “You’re an eyesore,” Fakhir suddenly swore at her.  The hands that were holding her aloft released her.  Fakhir turned abruptly to leave the stage even before she hit the ground.  
     Aria landed on one foot, stumbled to the other and fell several steps forward toward the edge of the stage.  Somehow she caught herself and balanced, stretching into an arabesque that for one second was absolutely flawless.  And one second only.  As the pose fell apart Aria’s eyes picked out a figure in the back of the theater … a very familiar figure.  _Mytho’s heart shard?  
_      Her own heart skipped, she forgot where she was and that she was balanced on the very edge of the stage, and suddenly she lost her balance and went tumbling over that edge with a yelp.  It was only a few feet to the ground—no more than five or six—but she struck on the balls of her feet, her knees folded and she smacked her forehead on her own bent knee as she landed on her tailbone.  Dazed, Aria picked herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her head painfully even as her eyes sought fervently through the shadows at the back of the theater where the heart shard had stood.  
      “Are you alright?” Paulamoni asked, hurrying over to her side.  An expression of concern was etched into her beautiful face.  
     Aria looked up at her in surprise, barely registering the question.  “What?  Oh yes.”  
      “I’m so sorry,” the ballerina effused, “I should not have asked you to dance.”  
      “No that’s okay,” Aria answered, not listening.  “Say, which way is the bathroom?”  
     Paulamoni shot her a strange look and pointed.  
      “Thanks!” Aria jumped to her feet, tearing off the tutu, and ran off in the opposite direction Paulamoni had indicated, pursuing the heart shard where it had disappeared at the back of the theater.  She burst through the doors and into the lobby in time to see something red and hazy disappearing through to the outside.  She ran outside but saw nothing except an empty street.  She turned in place looking all around, but whatever it was—heart shard or mirage—it was gone.  
     A familiar tune sounded from the corner and Aria looked up in surprise to see Edel with her hand organ.  
      “Hey Miss Edel,” Aria greeted her, running up to the organ grinder.  “Did you see a heart shard around here?”  
      “No I did not,” the strange woman answered without looking at her.  
     Aria sighed morosely and leaned against the wall of city hall before slumping to the ground where she sat cross-legged, her chin resting in her hands.  “Great, now I’m losing my mind.”  
     Edel slid a sideways look at her.  “What troubles you?”  
      “Everything,” Aria responded with another sigh.  “And nothing.  But more the nothing than the everything, because I can do something about everything, but I can’t do anything about nothing.”  
     There was a fast beat of silence, and then the organ grinder raised her voice while a pair of passerby glanced their way.  “Would anyone like some gems?” the strange woman peddled, “Beautiful, precious gems?”  
     Aria looked up at her in surprise.  “I didn’t know you sold gems Miss Edel.”  
     Edel smiled down at her and laughed.  
      “Fakhir said Mytho doesn’t need a heart.”  She spoke up suddenly, deciding to start with the _everything._   “That can’t be right.  He’s weird.  Definitely weird.  I mean really, Mytho doesn’t know how it feels to be in love, even though Rue truly loves him, isn’t that sad?”  
     Edel glanced in her direction, “Is it sad?”  
     Aria blinked at her in surprise, “You think so don’t you?”  
      “Is it sad for Mytho, Rue, or for you?”  
      “What?” Aria stared at her baffled, “I’m not really—” not really what?  In love with Mytho?  Why was that question coming up so many times today?  She glanced away, “Anyway, no matter what Fakhir does to get in my way I’m definitely going to get all of Mytho’s heart back to him.  I may not be able to make Mytho happy like Rue can since I’m just a bird but at least I can do this.”  She sighed again, “Maybe.”  
      “Maybe?”  
      “I thought I saw a heart shard today—just now,” she whimpered, starting in on the _nothing,_ “only it wasn’t a heart shard, and now I don’t know what it was, and how can I help Mytho if I can’t tell what’s a real heart shard or not?  And there’s this woman and I think I know her, or maybe I’ve seen her picture somewhere, but she talks to me like she knows me and I don’t know what to think about that and—”  
     A light caught at the corner of her eye and Aria looked up.  Edel was holding a sparkling gem toward her.  “Wow!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet at the sight of the beautiful jewel.  
     Edel smiled, “The name of this gem is Dream.  Yet who is happier, a dreamer who lingers, or one who’s awoken?”  
     Aria frowned.  _Who would it be?_   She didn’t think she liked the question.  Her eyes were drawn to the tray of gems on Edel’s stand and she leaned toward it.  One in particular caught her eye, white and radiant it seemed to glow with its own inner light.  She felt something in her chest, the ghost of an old pain, and an almost elusive pull toward the shining stone.  “What’s this gem called?” she asked in awe.  It seemed to almost grow warm under her finger, a strange light sparking deep within it.  
      “Hope,” Edel murmured demurely.  
     Aria stared at it a moment longer, seeming to see in its tiny surface a world of reflected images.  _A room, two girls happily laughing.  A crack in the world, a raven’s tower.  Blood and betrayal, a terrible carnage.  A black spider on white surrounded by red.  A river upturned.  A church under siege.  A house in the forest.  A battle.  A trap.  A Prince and a sword.  A moment of truth.  Pain._  A flash of white light exploded behind her eyes and a strange haze replaced the reflected world.  
     Aria blinked sluggishly, her gaze shifting from the glowing white jewel to the one next to it, no less beautiful but without that strange connection.  “And this one?”   
      “Adventure.”  
      “And this one?”  
      “Mystery.”  
     Aria smiled, the black stone with specks in it like stars certainly looked like a mystery.  There was one that didn’t match the others, a sort of orange with milky lines through it.  She frowned.  “What about this one?”  
      “Plot convenience.”  
     Aria did a quick double-take.  “What?” _Weird name._   She turned away, mulling over Edel’s question.  _Who is happier?  The dreamer who lingers, or the one who’s awoken?_   If the dream was pleasant and life was the nightmare, then clearly the dreamer was the luckier of the two.  But if the dream was a nightmare, then the one awoken is happier.  So then the real question isn’t who is happier, it’s which nightmare is worse—the dream or reality?  And how would the dreamer know which one is which.  Dreams can seem real, and reality can seem like a dream.  So who’s dreaming and who’s awake?  _And how do I know the difference?  
_       “…and I don’t want you to see Rue anymore either.”  
     Aria looked up as voices approached them.  “Qua—” she clapped her hands over her mouth and ducked behind Edel.  _Fakhir and Mytho!  What are they doing?  
_       “But Rue wants me to go to the performance with her.”  
      “You’re not going to the performance,” Fakhir growled harshly, pulling Mytho down the street by the elbow.  “I forbid it.  You will stay in your room and not go out at all until I say, do you understand me?”  
      “Yes Fakhir,” Mytho murmured, his voice near as the two young men walked past the organ grinder.  
     _Fakhir?_   Aria peeked out around Edel’s skirt, watching them disappear up the street.  _What does he think he’s doing?_  
      “Caw! Caw!”   
      “What?”  Aria looked up in time to see the large black bird drop out of the sky, swooping low overhead while cackling its terrible cry.  An ebon feather floated out of the sky where Fakhir and Mytho disappeared up the street.  “No way,” she breathed.  “Fakhir—is Fakhir the Raven?”

     The excitement was palpable all through town when the hour of the Eleki ballet approached.  Everyone was dressed in their best, and even Aria had borrowed a gown from Lillie, all green and swishy with an elegant ribbon that fastened just under her bust and tied into a bow at her back with long trailing ends.  Piqué had spent the better part of an hour taming her curls into a low swooping chignon, and Lillie had attacked her face with a collection of glittery makeup.  For the first time in her life she didn’t look like a complete disaster, and she couldn’t even enjoy it.  
     _Fakhir is the Raven._   It only made sense.  Why hadn’t she seen it before?  That thought kept turning itself over and over like poison in her mind.  Pique and Lillie had dragged her into town to enjoy a slice at the pizzeria before going to the show, but the food sat cold and abandoned on her plate.  The few bites she’d managed to nibble down had turned to stone in her stomach.  Lillie had giggled at her, claiming her nerves must have something to do with her impending romantic attachment to Eufemio.  Aria didn’t even have the energy to dissuade her.  She kept watching the door, waiting for Fakhir or Mytho or even Rue to enter but they never did, though it seemed like the rest of the advanced students were there grabbing food before the big show.  The harried waitresses bustled by looking exhausted.  
     When finally the church bell rang, announcing the hour, they paid their bill and joined the crowd surging down the street to the theater.  Flanked by her two best friends who seemed to be chattering nonsensically in her ears, Aria couldn’t suppress the cold shiver that slipped down her spine.  Her eyes went to the sky where dark clouds were gathering, and a sense of oppression settled suffocatingly over her.  _Something_ was about to happen.  Something big.  She could feel it in her bones.  Her sharp eyes pierced the crowd, searching every sheltered nook and crevice for any sign of the heart shard she’d seen before.  It never appeared.  Still, she couldn’t fight back the sense of dread that descended on her.  
     The crowd of students joined an even larger crowd already drawn up at the theater’s doors waiting for them to open.  It looked like the better part of Goldkrone Towne had turned out for opening night.  The streetlights glittered off sparkling jewelry, fine furs, and lavish gowns and suits.  A sense of excitement rode high over the crowd.  But underneath it thrummed a restlessness that only Aria—it seemed—could feel.  
     A ripple of movement drew her attention, and she turned to see a commotion forming on the steps.  A buzzing started up in her ears.  Was this what she was waiting for?  She pulled her arm out of Piqué’s and moved toward the disturbance, ignoring her friends calling behind her.  When she realized what the disturbance was, she started moving faster.  She shoved her way through the crowd, throwing elbows to force herself through the press of people.  Close enough now, she strained to hear the encounter before her.  
      “—what do you think you’re doing?”  
      “He’s accompanying me!”  
     Aria skidded to a stop at the edge of the clearing quickly forming around the disturbance.  She stared in horror as Fakhir—angrier than she’d ever seen him before—jerked Rue’s arm, pulling the girl off balance, and tossed her aside.  
      “You had no right!” he hissed between clenched teeth.  “I warned you to stay away from him.”  
     Rue righted herself, fury written plainly on her face, “You can’t tell me what to do,” she spat.  
     Fakhir turned to Mytho, who was standing still as a statue on the steps.  He grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him away.  “You’re coming with me,” he ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.  
     No one moved to intervene.  The crowd stood, shocked and immobile, watching the drama play out as if it were some macabre amuse-bouche to the evening’s entertainments.  Their impassivity and inaction fueled the fury lighted by Fakhir’s rage which scorched through her soul.  That rage cooled to an icy feeling that welled up in her, powerful and unstoppable, and it pushed aside all reason and caution.  She rushed into the fight with all the force of a charging tank, and struck Fakhir full in the chest with both her hands.  He stumbled back, and while he was off balance, she wrenched Mytho’s arm free of his grip.  
      “How _dare_ you?” she shouted at him.  “Who do you _think_ you are?”  
     Fakhir regained his footing and towered over her, his expression bleak and unforgiving.  “I told you to stay out of this.”  
      “No!” she shouted, her words punctuated by the ominous rumble of distant thunder.   She stabbed him in the chest with one finger, “ _You_ stay out of it.  Leave Mytho alone!  You’re not the boss of him.  You’re not the boss of anyone.”  
     The doors to the theater opened then, and people started filing in.  Behind her, Rue grabbed Mytho by the arm and started dragging him away.  “Come on,” she ordered, “Let’s get inside.”  Lightning flashed overhead.  
      “Wait!” Fakhir called after them, attempting to force Aria out of the way.  
     She moved quickly, positioning herself between them again so that if Fakhir wanted to chase after Mytho, he was going to have to bodily move her aside first.  And she dared him to lay hands on her with her scorching glare.  The crowd around them began to disperse, but the greater drama was still taking place right here as Fakhir’s face filled with an icy rage.  “Do not think to interfere in this,” he warned, his words stilted and formal.  “Or you will regret it.”  
      “What are you going to do?” she challenged.  “Hit me?  Go ahead!”  Aria had never been hit by anyone in her life, and yet she lifted her face as if inviting his fist to strike her.  
     A speechless wrath came over Fakhir’s expression, his eyes lighting with unspeakable emotions and he raised his arm.  Aria stared him down, defying the blow to land.  His hand began to shake, she could see the struggle on his face.  He actually seemed to be fighting with himself.  Another growl of thunder shook the earth, and lightning lit his face outlining the harsh planes and angles.  And then his hand dropped.  But the wrath of his expression only grew more pronounced, “You have no idea the enemy you have made today,” he whispered harshly.  “Now get out of my way.”  
      “I won’t let you hurt Mytho.”  
     An expression flickered through those burning green eyes.  He reeled back as if she’d slapped him.  “I have no intention of _hurting_ Mytho,” he spat at her.  “It’s my job to protect him, and I won’t let _anyone_ , especially a little eyesore like you, stand in my way.”  
     _Protect him?_   She gasped, taken by surprise.  
     Fakhir seized his opportunity and manuevered around her.  
     Aria was on the verge of charging after him, but something else caught her eye.  A flicker of movement glowed at the end of the street where it turned the corner around the town hall.   
      “What?” she gasped.   
      “Duck!” she heard Piqué call to her, but she moved away from the crowd.  Another flash of lightning lit the shadows and she saw clearly what stood at the end of the street.  It was the glowing form of a heart shard.  “Mytho!” she breathed, racing toward the heart shard as it ducked away.  She spun to a stop, “Wait, why is it running?”  
     It took off again at inhuman speeds and she knew she’d never catch it.  Not as she was now.  Aria threw a wild look all around to ensure she was alone, then stepped forward and between one step and the next she transformed into Princess Tutu.  The heart shard dashed toward the staircase that ran up the side of the building and climbed to the roof.  Tutu took off after it, chasing it up and up.  “Why are you fleeing?” she called after it.  “Wait!”  
     It paused, looked back at her white-faced, and then resumed its climb at an even faster pace.  There was no way she could keep up with it.  Tutu stretched out her arms, calling upon her power.  Vines rose up around her from those that trailed up the building’s sides, roses blooming upon their thorny fingers.  Tutu stepped into a blossoming bower, and the vines continued to grow, stretching upward, carrying her to the peak of the roof far faster than she could have climbed there.  
      “Wait!” she called out to the heart shard as it reached the height of the roof.  “What are you running from?”  She leapt, clearing the heart shard and landing in front of it.  She spun to face it, weaving a net of roses behind her at the edge of the building where it fell off several stories to the stony street below.  
     The heart shard stopped short, staring at her with wide frightened eyes, then turned and raced across the roof toward the opposite end.  
     Tutu followed it, leaping across the tiles as it fled to the very edge of the precipice overlooking the street.  It stopped at the edge, gazing fearfully down at the drop.  Tutu spun to a stop and spread her hands, “Let me bring you back to where you belong,” she beseeched the frightened shard.  
      “I won’t, I’m scared,” it told her, cringing away.  
      “But you have to,” she begged it.  
      “But why?”  
     She shook her head in confusion.  None of the other shards had fought her like this.  “You just do.”  
      “What for?”  
      “So that Mytho can regain his smile,” she told it in bafflement.  “I can take you back.”  She stepped forward, holding out a hand, “Now come here,” she entreated.  “Come here!” she called out when it hesitated.  
     It blinked at her and for a moment she thought that it would. Then suddenly a glowing sword appeared in its hands.  “No!” he cried out, and swung the sword at her.  
     Tutu fell backwards to the tiles of the roof, catching the pommel of the sword in her hands.  As she did, the shard began to glow and reform as a jewel that drifted to her clasped palms.  She stood up, shaking and unsure, staring down at the glittering jewel.  _What just happened?  What jewel is this?_   There was only one thing it could be, and she quaked to think of returning it.  But she had to return it.  Swallowing hard, Tutu opened her hands, “Now go back to Mytho,” she whispered.  The shard floated away from her and a flash of lightning blinded her—a white light that seared into her lids and stabbed into her brain awakening a flash of memories.  
      “Wait—” she gasped.  “What?!”

***

     The symphony was tuning up, and as Mytho listened to the various discordant notes, a different set of sounds echoed over them.  A wave of irritation was rippling toward him.  
      “…out of my way!”  
      “Shh!”  
      “Ouch, you stepped on my foot!”  
      “Hey, it’s about to start, what do you think you’re doing?”  
     Mytho looked up as Fakhir, his face a thundercloud, forced his way across the row to where he sat beside Rue.  “Fakhir,” he spoke in surprise, “I—”  
     He froze midsentence and clapped his hands over his heart in sudden shock as the now-familiar sensation of a shard returning cut into him.  His eyes widened and something flashed in his mind with the return of the shard.  A girl, a face he should know …  
     _“No more!”_ she cries, facing down a monster.  
     _“Checkmate,”_ the monster growls.  
     Mytho shot to his feet clutching his chest as the image seared in his mind.  Something tore at his sternum and he doubled over in agony.   
     _A flash of a knife, her body spasms.  
_      Pain, sharp and very real cut into him, like the point of a knife pressing into his heart.  
     _The girl … dying … blood everywhere._   And this feeling?  Something he’d felt before, something he could put a name to now.  _Fear._    
     _She can’t be dead.  I have to save her._   But the fear was real and it was alive and he knew that she was dead.  No one could survive that much blood loss… a knife to the center of her chest.  The fear ripped itself from him and he opened his mouth.  A soul-splitting howl of grief and fear tore itself from his throat and he cried out to the skies, to the gods, to anyone who could hear him.  
      “Mytho?” Rue’s voice, panicked and concerned.  
      “Mytho!”  Fakhir grasped his arms, dragging him away from the sudden crush of people.  Mytho went willingly, even as the fear consumed him.  He still screamed, the image of the girl seared in his brain.   
     _Too slow.  Too slow!  
_      _A hand, a knife…  
_      _Her body jerks once, eyes wide…  
_      _Blood and snow…  
_      _A doll discarded to die…  
_      They were outside the theater now.  Cold rain was splashing down on them but Mytho couldn’t stop screaming.   
     _A body, heavy in his arms.  He didn’t know why he carried it.  He couldn’t remember who she was, but he couldn’t bear to let her go.  
_      _Tears, cold and continuous, burning his eyes.  
_      _Wandering, alone so alone, searching for something.  
_      _Must remember, I must remember…  
_      _…her!  
_      He could hear Fakhir’s voice now, calm and soothing even as he dragged Mytho further away.  “Hang on Mytho,” he was saying, “Hang on.”  And then almost to himself, “Damn that Princess Tutu!”  
     Mytho was sobbing now, unable to wipe away the image that burned in his mind with the return of the heart shard.  The girl, the knife.  Her body dropping to the ground like a puppet with so many strings cut.   
     Mytho’s knees buckled as if his own strings had been cut and Fakhir caught him so they sank to the ground together.  He could hear the fear in the boy’s voice as he spoke.  “Mytho!  What is it?  What’s happened?”  
      “I’m scared,” he heard himself saying.  
      “It’s okay,” Fakhir said, a trace of desperation in his words.  “Just calm down.  It’s alright.”  Fakhir was on his knees now too, bracing Mytho up with both hands on his shoulders.  “I’m the only one here.  What is it?  What scares you?  Tell me!”  
     The blood.  The knife.  The girl.  Mytho shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to right it, trying to sort the images into any sort of sense.  _The weight of a body in his arms, lifeless and bloody…_   “Tutu,” he gasped.  “I’m afraid of Princess Tutu.”  
     Fakhir’s face hardened, galvanizing into something as close to hate as Mytho had ever seen him come.  
     Mytho wanted to explain.  Wanted to make it clearer, but what could he say?  It didn’t make any sense.  How could he answer Fakhir’s hate with an incomprehensible riddle?  Because he hadn’t lied, Princess Tutu _was_ what he feared, because the girl—the girl he saw in his mind—the girl who died... _The girl in his arms._   He’d seen her face.  
     It was Tutu.

 


	13. Der unglückselige Prinzessin

**_The Ill-Fated Princess_ **

 

     A week.  Seven days.  One hundred and fifty-six hours.  Nine thousand three hundred and sixty minutes.  Five hundred sixty-one thousand six hundred seconds.  Or to be more precise, six hundred eighty-four thousand four hundred and fifty-one … fifty-two … fifty-three heartbeats since the night of the Eleki Troupe’s performance.  The night Princess Tutu found the heart shard of Fear.   
     The night that Mytho disappeared.  
     _“…I’m afraid of Tutu…”  
_      The night she’d heard those words.  
     Aria squeezed her swollen eyes shut, silent tears streaming mercilessly down her cheeks, and pulled the covers up to her chin.  
     _“…afraid of Tutu…”  
_      She hadn’t slept since that night.  She’d barely eaten.  Those words thundered in her head over and over.  She couldn’t concentrate on anything except the empty howling pain those words had induced.  The sight of Mytho, white-faced and terrified in the rain…  
     _“…afraid of Tutu…”  
_       “What did he mean?” she asked herself for the thousandth time since that night.  “I don’t understand.  I returned a shard of his heart so why was he crying?  Why was he suffering in such pain?”  She wiped the tears off her face with the back of her hand but it was no use, for more soon replaced those she’d wiped away.  She’d thought by now her tears would have run dry, but still they came.  “What’s going to happen to him?  I just wanted Mytho to smile—” … _just one last time.  
_      As if that thought triggered it again, the events of that night flashed in her memory.  The cold rain that had soaked her, plastering the fancy dress to her skin, ruining the makeup Lillie had painstakingly applied, and the chignon Piqué had fought into her untamable curls.  She’d climbed down off the roof and was heading back to the dorms when she’d seen them, Fakhir and Mytho in the street, shivering uncontrollably as she heard those fateful words.  
     It was more than that which made her convulse with fear that night though, shaking so violently she’d barely been able to descend from the roof without plummeting to the hard cobblestoned street.  That moment—the moment the shard left her hands, and that blinding white light had flashed before her eyes.  She’d thought it was lightning, but was it really?  She didn’t know.  In that moment an image had filled her mind that struck her like a blow, made her double over in pain as if she’d been kicked in the stomach, and drove all the breath from her body.  That image of…  
     _Pain, nameless bloody pain.  
_      _Cold fingers stained red…  
_      _Streaks of blood upon a pale cheek, frozen tears.  
_      _Coughing, choking, the taste of blood…  
_      _“Please—” choking, coughing, no more words…  
_      _…A face so sad, and that last thought…  
_      _…please,_ please smile just one last time…  
     What was that?  A dream?  A nightmare?  Or … a memory?  
     If it was a dream why did it feel so real?  And if it was a memory, why couldn’t she recall it?  And Edel’s words which haunted her recollection, _“…_ _who is happier, a dreamer who lingers, or one who’s awoken?”  
_       “Oh what have I done!” she wailed, and pulled the covers up over her head.  She wanted to crawl under her covers, curl up and die.  She hoped she could.  That at least would quell the anguish that washed through her at the sight of Mytho’s tears, and the sound of his voice so terrified.  _Terrified of me.  
_       “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she whimpered.  
      “Duck!” Piqué’s voice called through the door.  “Duck, we’re leaving!”  
     Aria curled tighter under the covers.  She knew it was childish, but she covered her ears with her hands.  _Go away, go away!  
_       “Duck!  If you don’t hurry you’ll be back on probation!”  Lillie’s voice this time.  
     Aria didn’t care about classes or being on probation.  She didn’t care about Mr. Catt or Ms. Ziegenfuss, or anything except Mytho and that look of anguish on his face.  But something inside of her drove her to throw off the covers and sit up.  “Yeah, yeah I hear you,” she called back wearily, just barely able to keep the tears from her voice.  “I’m coming.”  
      “We’ll wait for you downstairs,” Piqué called through the door, and she heard their footsteps as they retreated down the hall.  
     Aria breathed a sigh and drew her knees up to her chest, covering her face with her hands as a fresh wave of weeping swept over her.  _No one’s seen Mytho since that night._   The story was that he’d had a nervous fit, likely brought on by all the stress of preparing for the summer showcase of Giselle, and that he was taking time off to rest.  But Aria knew differently, she knew … _it’s all my fault._  
     Aria collapsed back onto the bed and curled up into her blankets, weeping uncontrollably. 

     It was a miracle that Aria had made it out of her bed and to her first class on time.  Her face was unwashed, her hair unbrushed and wild, and her clothes unkempt and askew.  But she didn’t notice, and everyone else was too used to seeing her in similarly ungroomed states to care.  Only her friends knew something was wrong, and they watched her with worried eyes.  They’d never seen her like this before, and despite all their attempts to draw her out, Aria remained woodenly unsociable.  Instead she moved through her day on autopilot, walking amidst her fellow classmates like a ghost moving through the world of the living.  Conversations echoed around her, words bouncing off of her without eliciting any reaction.  
     _“I wonder if Mytho’s alright.”  
_      _“It’s been a week since Mytho stopped coming to class.”  
_      _“Fakhir too.”  
_      _“What the heck are they thinking?”  
_      _“Well it’s not like you can ever tell what Mytho’s thinking anyway.”  
_      She heard the words but they didn’t register.  She heard his name everywhere.  She saw his face everywhere but it wasn’t him.  And behind it all, that _other_ image.  _Cold fingers stained red, streaks of blood upon a pale cheek, frozen tears._ That face she saw, she touched, fingers red with blood.  It was _his_ face… and her blood.  _Wasn’t it?_    She wanted to see him.  She _needed_ to see him, to know that he was okay.  _But he’s not okay.  Nothings okay.  
_      Moving like one entranced, Aria took a seat at her desk in ballet history class, removed a notebook and placed it in front of her.  She didn’t open it.  She didn’t even pull out a pen.  All she could do was sit and stare and hope, hope … _hope this is all a nightmare and I’ll wake up.  
_      At the front of the classroom Mr. Catt clapped his hands for attention.  “Everyone did exceptionally well on their reports on ‘Sleeping Beauty’ by the Eleki Troupe the other day,” he said, Aria barely listening.  “Especially Miss Kerrane, brilliantly insightful, though I expected no less.”  
      “Thank you very much,” Rue beamed at him from her place several desks ahead of Aria.  
     Mr. Catt looked down at the papers on his desk.  “And then we come to what seems to be Miss Arima’s report.”  
     _“Who?”_ someone whispered.  
     _“Duck.”  
_      Aria just stared at her desk, she couldn’t even remember what she’d written, nor did she care about any impending public humiliation.   
      “It was really great,” Mr. Catt read the report aloud.  “The end.”  He looked up at her a little ironically, “Brilliantly succinct, Miss Aria.  I expected no less.”  
      “Thank you very much,” she whispered tonelessly.  
      “That’s sarcasm,” he drawled dryly.  
      “Yes, thank you,” she murmured.  
      “Keep this up, Miss Arima, and you’ll be back on probation!”  
      “Yes, thank you,” she murmured in her monotone.  
     He gaped at her, “Are you mocking me Miss Arima?”  
      “Yes,” she answered him, “thank you.”  
     Piqué threw her a quick, shocked look.  “No Mr. Catt!  She isn’t mocking you.  She just isn’t feeling well, she’s been a little under the weather.”  
      “Yes!” Lillie jumped in defensively, “A summer cold, she really shouldn’t even be in class, isn’t that right, Duck?  You’re feeling feverish, right?”  
      “Yes,” Aria replied, “thank you.”  
      “I’ll be happy to take Duck to the nurse’s office,” Rue volunteered.  
     Mr. Catt, looking distinctly out of his depth, only nodded.  “Of course, Miss Kerrane.  If Miss Arima is really as ill as her friends claim, she certainly shouldn’t be around the other students.  But I wouldn’t want you to catch anything…”  
      “Oh it’s no bother,” Rue laughed off his concern, “I’ll be fine.”  She rose to her feet, “Duck, are you okay to walk with me to the nurse’s office?”  
     Aria got to her feet and shuffled over to Rue.  Her friends looked on in shock as Rue looped an arm through hers and led her out into the hallway.  Whispers started up behind them, but Aria didn’t care.  
      “I wanted to thank you,” Rue said as they walked down the hallway together.  “For last Friday when you confronted Fakhir.  That was very sweet.”  
      “You’re welcome.”  
     Rue threw her a strange look.  “You really aren’t feeling well, are you?  And you’ve been crying, haven’t you?”  She studied Aria’s face closely, “Fakhir didn’t do anything to you, did he?  After Mytho and I left?”  
      “No,” Aria shook her head, “That isn’t it at all.”  Some of her sense seemed to catch up to her at that point and she stopped walking.  “Why are you being nice to me?” she asked.  
     Rue shrugged, “It’s nothing really, you’re an underclassman and you can’t be in the hallways after the bell unless you have an escort.”  
      “Right,” Aria nodded, drooping again.  “Have you seen Mytho lately?” she asked, and then wondered why she’d said anything at all.  
     A fragile expression crossed Rue’s face but it was quickly dashed away.  “Why should that matter to you?” she demanded haughtily.  
      “No reason,” Aria stared at the floor uncomfortably.  “I’m sorry you haven’t seen him.  I’m sure he’ll be coming to school again soon.”  
     Rue lifted a brow at her, “Why do you think that?”  
      “Just a feeling I guess,” she shrugged as a show of indifference.  _A hope really_.  Sighing sadly, she stared at her own feet, “I’m sorry for saying things and stuff.”  
     Rue blinked at her.  “You _really_ aren’t feeling well.  Have you eaten anything today?”  
      “I had a muffin after pointe class,” she answered automatically.  
     Rue made a face, “Pointe class is on Wednesday.  This is Friday.”  She took Aria’s arm again and pulled her along.  “I told Mr. Catt I was taking you to the nurse’s office, so let’s hurry up.  I don’t want to miss the rest of class.  Some of us care about our grades.”  
     Aria didn’t even have a retort, so she followed numbly after Rue.   
     The nurse wasn’t in her office when they reached it.  The white-veiled nurse’s assistant was folding linens, and she looked up in surprise when they interrupted her chore.  “Yes?”  
      “Aria isn’t feeling well,” Rue reported in her normal superior tone.  “She hasn’t eaten anything since before yesterday.”  
     The assistant’s eyes went wide, “Oh!  Here,” she gestured Aria to one of the low cots half-partitioned off by curtains.  “I’ll fetch something for you.”  
     The nurse’s assistant left quickly, and Rue turned as if to leave as well.  Aria watched her go uncertainly.  “Hey Rue!” she called out on an impulse.  
     Rue turned back.  
     Risking it all, Aria took a step forward.  “So you know that Mytho doesn’t have a heart, don’t you?”  
     Rue’s face paled and her eyes went wide.  She swallowed before answering, “Of course.”  
      “Okay,” Aria glanced away, “so don’t you think it’d be better if he had a heart?”  
     Rue gasped in alarm, her wide eyes taking in the most unlikely source of that question disbelievingly.  “It doesn’t matter,” she said after a long moment of silence.  
      “What?” Aria asked in surprise, the words a knife to her chest.   
     Rue glanced away, “The only one I ever had eyes for was Mytho.  Whether or not he has a heart does not in any way change the simple fact that I love him.  I will continue to love him,” she murmured.  “I’m still far from having loved him enough.”  With that speech she turned her back and walked away.  
     Aria stared after her.  _Rue said she loves Mytho.  But I—_ she touched the pendant at her throat.  _I’m just a bird so something like that … love … what is that to me?  
_      The nurse returned in a short while and made Aria sit down on the small cot in one corner and drink orange juice and chew on a bran muffin.  Eventually Lillie and Piqué showed up to take her back to the dorms.  At orders from the nurse, they stopped first at the school cafeteria to grab a quick dinner.  Aria didn’t even pay attention to what they put on her plate, and wound up with a tray of stewed spinach, croutons, and roast beef with gravy which turned out to be chocolate pudding.  
      “Are you really going to eat that?” Piqué made a face as Aria robotically forked a bite of roast beef and pudding into her mouth.  She chewed absently, “Eat what?”  
      “Wow,” Lillie mouthed, “We knew you were feeling down lately, but we didn’t think you were this far gone.”  
      “Seriously,” Piqué agreed a bit worriedly.  “What’s with you?  Mr. Catt was on the verge of having you suspended today.”  
     Aria didn’t say anything as she took a bite of spinach and croutons.  
      “It makes me sad to see you like this, Duck,” Lillie prodded her gently.  
      “Hey,” Piqué poked her arm, “No matter what happens you always forget about it and cheer up again, remember?”  
     Aria drooped, pushing her plate away and folding her arms on the table to rest her head on them.  
      “Hey!” Lillie cried out with some alarm, “Are you feeling okay?”  
      “I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t get it anymore.”  
      “Don’t get what?” Piqué asked.  
      “Don’t worry,” Lillie tried to assure her, “You never got any of the stuff in class anyway, remember?”  
      “No,” Aria sighed, “Not like that.  I mean, things like what do I want to do?  It’s just everything…” she struggled to keep a fresh bout of tears in check.  
     Lillie and Piqué exchanged worried looks over the table.  “Wow, that sounds serious,” Piqué murmured.  She glanced over at Aria, “Could it be because Mytho hasn’t been to class in a while?”  
     Aria lost the battle and tears started rolling in hot streaks down her cheeks.  She hid her face in the nest of her arms.  
      “At times like this, why don’t you go to the Prodding Bridge?” Lillie suggested sounding like she was trying to be helpful.  
      “The what?” she asked, looking up at Lillie through her tears.  
      “You don’t know it?” she asked.  “It’s an old bridge over the river on Neumühle.”  
      “That’s right,” Piqué encouraged, “when you stand on that bridge and talk about what’s worrying you, out of nowhere a voice starts asking ‘Why? How Come?’”  
      “Is this a ghost story?” Aria asked, puzzled enough to stop crying.  
      “No, ghosts here,” Lillie laughed lightly.  Her voice dropped low and creepy.  “Only question after question until you sort out how you feel.”  
     Aria threw her a strange look, “Then why are you talking like that?”  
      “Although,” Piqué spoke up, also in a low and raspy voice.  “That’s not all.”  
      “What?” Aria asked, shivers running down her spine despite herself.  
      “That’s right,” Lillie leaned forward, grabbing Aria’s hand.  “If you take too long to answer the questions…”  
      “What?” Aria demanded in the silence.  
     Lillie and Piqué simultaneously jumped at her, “The river swallows you up!”  
     Aria started, and then suppressed the urge to smack them both.   
      “No, just kidding,” Piqué laughed.  “But there is a legend like that.”  
      “It’s an old, old story.”  
      “What about now?” Aria asked.  
      “I don’t know,” they said together, back to their raspy creepy voices.  “It may have been true then, but I doubt it is now.”  
      “If it doesn’t happen, just talk normal,” Aria muttered.  
     Piqué laughed, deciding to take pity on her.  “There are several people who say they heard voices by the river there, but mostly people just go and talk to the water.  It’s a nice spot really, and on Sundays there’s hardly anyone around and there’s a pretty view of the canal from the bridge.”  
      “And it doesn’t hurt to talk about things,” Lillie encouraged her, “I mean, if you can’t talk to us about what’s going on with you, you should talk to someone.  Even if it is just the river.”  
     Aria frowned.  _Talk to someone?_   The only person she really wanted to talk to was Mytho.  _Oh Mytho, where are you?_

***

     _Darkness and death.  A checkerboard floor.  Knight to F-1.  Bishop takes Knight.  Queen takes Bishop.  King takes Queen.  “Checkmate.”  Blood on the floor, the smell thick in the air.  “She was just a pawn, my Prince.  You’re the one who tried to make her more.  Too bad her sacrifice meant nothing in the end.”  A Raven, dark and gloating.  Its red eyes burned into his soul._ What can I do? _A pain at his heart, the Raven’s claws descend, and he’s torn in two…_

             
     Mytho woke screaming, the images of the Raven and the girl seared in his brain.  The pain in the dream felt real, a heat in his chest where his heart should be that burned through to the bone.  He gasped at the taste of that pain, at the fear the nightmare elicited.  Shaking, he clutched his arms with claw-like fingers, sweat beading on his brow.  The smell of wheat filled his nostrils and it took a moment to remember why.  _The millhouse,_ he recalled.  For some reason he’d been sleeping in its loft all week, on a bed made up of flour sacks and wheat straw.  
      “Snap out of it Mytho!”  
     _Fakhir._   Mytho looked up and saw him, sitting beside him on the makeshift bed.  For some reason the sight of Fakhir eased his fears.  At least he wasn’t alone.  But he couldn’t stop shaking, and gasping at the air like a drowning man.   
      “Calm down,” Fakhir urged him.  He wasn’t dressed in his school uniform, but in the old blue shirt he wore when he was working at the blacksmith’s shop where he was raised.  That must mean it was a weekend.  Mytho hadn’t even been outside.  He didn’t even know what day it was.  “What is it,” Fakhir asked, concern written across his face.  
      “Fakhir,” Mytho choked out, “I had a dream.  There was a gigantic black being and it…”  
     Fakhir’s eyes flashed, “Don’t worry,” he cut Mytho off quickly.   
      “Who was that?” Mytho gasped, curling his knees up to his chest.  
     Fakhir ground his teeth together, but when he answered his voice was gentle.  “Don’t trouble yourself,” he offered comfortingly.  “You don’t need to know anything.  Got it?”   
     Mytho managed to nod.  
     Fakhir stared at him for a fast second as if not sure Mytho fully understood him.  Abruptly he got up and crossed the loft.  For a second Mytho was scared he was leaving again.  Mytho didn’t know where Fakhir went when he left.  Fakhir had stayed close to Mytho the first day he brought him here, leaving only to get food and returning quickly.  But he was gone more and more, and for longer periods now.  He always came back at night, standing watch as if expecting an attack.  Mytho hadn’t even seen him sleep.  But Fakhir didn’t go to the ladder that led down into the barn.  He crossed to a table that stood against one wall.  
      “Where’s Tutu?” Mytho asked suddenly.  He wasn’t even sure if it was a question he’d meant to ask, but it was the only thing he wanted to know.  
     Fakhir paused beside the table where he’d set out some food.  “Relax,” he said pouring a cup of tea, “Nobody knows we’re here.”  
      “I can’t see Tutu?” Mytho asked, unable to keep the longing from his voice.  _Does that mean it was real?  Is she really…?_   The face in his mind covered in blood couldn’t be wiped away.  And it couldn’t be her.  He wouldn’t let it be.  
     Fakhir tensed.  “That’s right,” he spoke firmly.  “If you stay in here you’ll eventually forget everything.”  He returned to Mytho’s side with the cup of tea, “And you won’t be led astray by those inane emotions either.  That’s what’s best for you.”  
     Mytho stared into the cup of tea uncertainly.  _Is that what I want?_   He wondered.  He didn’t even think to wonder if he’d ever considered such a question before.  
     _Knight to F-1.  Bishop takes Knight.  Queen takes Bishop.  King takes Queen.  
_      _King takes Queen.  
_      His fingers convulsed around the cup of tea as he stared into nothing seeing only the dream.  
     _King takes Queen…_  
     The King was a Raven.  
     Tutu was the Queen.

***

     This wasn’t how the story was supposed to progress.  The spirit in the shadows stared into the running sands of time in alarm as the useless little duck wandered aimlessly through town.  _It’s no good if she can’t snap out of it!_   He growled through gritted teeth.  “I blame that woman,” he spat.  _Paulamoni Eleki._   “If she hadn’t started _teaching_ her things, that little duck would be doing what she’s supposed to be doing instead of _thinking_ about whether it’s right or not!”  
      “I told you she was powerful,” his companion purred.  
      “Poppycock!  She’s a fool, and one who’s fallen into my schemes easily three times now.”  
      “And each time emerges stronger.  You forget, she’s proved her bloodline.”  
      “Yes,” he snapped, eyes narrowed angrily.  And _that_ had been a surprise.  That arrogant, worthless, princeling had kept that from him.  If he’d _known_ , well… they wouldn’t be here, now would they?  “It doesn’t matter,” he spat.  “She’s mine!” or at least what little he could salvage.  His hand closed around a burning white jewel that hung from his neck, “ _You_ would do well to remember that.”  
     But the jewel was growing dim.  Its power was running out, and the strength he had to maintain his spell was running out too.  Death was calling.  A shiver ran down his incorporeal spine at the thought.  _No!  I’ve defeated death before, I’ll do it again!  
_      Movement reflected out of the sands of time, and his thoughts were distracted as the little duck stopped walking, standing on the peak of a bridge which arched over the canal.  She leaned her elbows on the bridge railing and rested her chin in one hand looking despondent and lost.  
     The spirit gnashed his teeth, “I wrote an upbeat, cheerful heroine!  Not a lethargic waif!  This is no good!”  
     _“This place is really deserted on Sunday,”_ the little duck’s voice echoed through the sands of time.  _“But that’s okay I guess.  I’m always alone anyway.”_   She sighed and a single tear slipped down her cheek.  
      “Teenage girls and waterfowl!” the spirit howled, “unpredictable creatures!”  He turned to his companion, “I don’t have time to mess with this emotional nonsense.  I need you to go down there and fix this!”  
     From the corner she bowed.  There was a sound of movement and she was gone.  The spirit turned his attention back to the action—or rather _inaction_ —on the bridge.  
     _“I want to make sure…”_ the duck spoke senselessly to the water, _“…but both Rue and Fakhir say he doesn’t need a heart.  Plus Mytho’s suffering, so what is there to make sure of?”  
_      The spirit rolled his eyes.  “No amount of editing is going to repair _this_ level of angst!”  
     The little duck gasped and stared down at her pendant which had begun to glow, “A heart shard?” she looked around, searching for the fragment of the Prince’s heart.  
      “Yes, yes!”  He shouted in glee.  “That’s it!  Now do your job and restore the Prince’s heart!”  
     But she didn’t.  Instead she sighed again, shoulders drooping, and dropped her head onto her folded arms.  _“It doesn’t matter anyway,”_ she moaned.  Then with sudden violence she straightened up and ripped the chain off her neck, holding the glittering jewel out over the water.  
      “No!” the spirit gasped in cold terror.  “No, she wouldn’t!  She couldn’t!  This isn’t what I wrote!”  He looked around all over for his puppet, but she hadn’t finished crossing yet to the mortal realm.  “No!” he wailed.  
     _“Being Princess Tutu is meaningless,”_ the useless little duck murmured.  _“I could quit…  I would just have to return this…”  
_       “No, don’t you dare!” he raged at the flowing sands of time.  “Don’t you dare start developing a conscience now!  You’re _my_ character and you will do as _I_ write!”  
     _But then I’d go back to being a bird…”_ tears filled her eyes.  _“What if I just stayed a girl?  Would that be dishonest?”_  The tears spilled over.  _“It would, wouldn’t it?”_    
      “No!  No!”  He shouted in horror.  His puppet was there now, hurrying toward the scene as fast as the strings could carry her, but it was no use.  He clapped a hand around the white jewel at his throat, but that was pointless too.  He’d expended too much energy trying to control the actions of the Eleki Troupe.  He hadn’t the strength to prevent this too.  
     The duck closed a fist around the jewel.  Determination that wasn’t in the character he’d concocted flared in her eyes.  Not even the white light which burned away the memory of who she was before was enough to wipe out that inner strength.  _“Better to end it all right here and now.”  
_      She lifted the pendant high overhead, shouting as if a final battle cry. _“There was never anything I could do for him from the start!  I just fell in love on my own and believed what I wanted to.”_  A single tear dropped off her cheek and struck the surface of the water below.  
     _No time!_   The spirit realized.  He couldn’t trust the puppet to fix this anyway.  He’d have to do it himself.  “Damn it all!”  He cursed in frustration, ground his insubstantial teeth together, and stomped away angrily.  “I refuse to let it all end here.  No character in a story would ever say they’d just end things at a spot like this.  I swear, reality is so … unpredictable.”  
     The spirit swirled his spectral cape around ghostly shoulders, and placed his shadowy hat upon his ghoulish head, tucking a phantom pocket watch into an insubstantial pocket.  He swooped away from the swirling sands of time through which he viewed the incompetent little duck brooding on the bridge.  “Since it’s come to this I have no choice but to use my passageway of space and time again, though it’s so old who knows how many more times I’ll be able to use it?”  He placed a hand around the jewel burning at his throat, and then tucked it underneath his collar.  “I hope there’s enough energy left for this…”  
     Out on the bridge, the little duck watched her tear fall toward the surface of the water, and then stared transfixed as it floated there, just barely breaching that surface.  “What!?” she gasped in alarm.  “Time?  Time has stopped?”  
      “Long time no see, little duck,” the spirit growled at her from where he stood, framed in the doorway of the portal on the bridge.  
     She stifled a scream, backing against the bridge’s low stone wall.  
      “For shame,” he humbled her, smiling mockingly as he stepped out of the portal.  “Have you forgotten me so soon?”   
     Suddenly he wasn’t standing on the bridge and the little duck blinked.  
      “It is I, Drosselmeyer!” he exclaimed in a booming voice from the surface of the water.  She jumped in the air and looked down in the water where the old man’s face rippled upon the surface.   
      “But you’re supposed to be dead,” she murmured, backing away from the bridge’s edge.  
      “Yes I am dead,” the spirit told her gleefully, moving from the surface of the water to the shadows across the street.  “Completely dead.  That is why I can only meet you in this way.  I came all this way to convince you of the foolishness of quitting your vocation as Princess Tutu.  Now you have to go restore the Prince’s heart to him.”  
     She stared at him in horror, “All I’ve gotten for him is fear and tears.”  
     The spirit threw back his head and laughed delightedly, “That’s right!”  He caught himself suddenly and stared at her, quickly covering.  He leaned forward, “Now listen, if you go back to being a duck you’ll never get to see the Prince again.”  
      “Mr. Drosselmeyer,” she spoke up.  
      “What is it?” he snapped.  
      “Why did you give me the chance to be Princess Tutu?”  
      “That’s easy,” he laughed, just barely keeping the maniacal glint from his eye.  “Because it would be fun!”  
      “What do you mean?” she stammered.  
     His eyes went wide and he snapped his mouth shut.  _Damn it all!_   He wasn’t doing this right.  “No, what I mean is … You’re the only one who can.”  
      “I’m the only one?” she shook her head.  “That doesn’t make any sense.”  
     Drosselmeyer grinned, “Although she risks everything for the Prince, Princess Tutu is fated never to be united with him.”  He clasped his hands dramatically to his heart, “Oh how cruel!  What a thankless role!  No one wants to be her…” he laughed again.   
     Tears traced down her cheeks, “It doesn’t matter,” she whimpered, “the Prince just hates me now.”  
      “That’s right,” he cackled, “Truly delightful!”  
     She turned back to the water and he suspected he’d pushed too far.  
      “You see don’t you,” Drosselmeyer drawled, appealing in desperation to the _her_ she had been before.  “If you don’t do it who will?”  
      “I don’t care!” the duck shouted, and as the spirit cried out in dismay, she threw the pendant as far as she could over the canal.  
      “Oh what have you done!”  He howled in anguish, swelling with fury.  
     She shrank back from him in fright even as she transformed once more into a duck.  
     He caught his reactive growl on his teeth, “No good,” he swore, swirling his cape about him, “I’ll leave it to you.”  
     The portal closed and he was standing once more in his chamber before the falling sands of time.  “Where are you puppet!” he raged.  
      “Here,” she answered, “I retrieved this for you.”  She held out her hand and from it glittered the chain of the jewel the duck had cast aside.  
      “Never mind that now,” he waved her away.  “I have to accelerate my plans.  If the duck won’t do, then we’ll have to wake the crow.”  
      “Are you sure that’s wise?  It was only a backup plan after all.”  
      “Yes, and now I have no choice.”  
      “She failed you once before.”  
      “What part of no choice do you not understand!” he shouted.  He looked into her placid face and growled again.  Of course, she _understood_ nothing.  That was the beauty of puppets over lost little girls.  At least the puppets obeyed when he pulled their strings.  He waved his hand over the sands of time, and no more was the little duck reflected in them.  Now it showed a girl with ebon hair sitting on her bed.  She turned and stifled a scream at the sight of the bird on her window, staring ominously in at her through glowing red eyes.   
      “It’s time,” the spirit cackled low and creepily, “Time to remember who you truly are … Rue.”


	14. Krähe

**_The Crow Princess_ **

 

     Fakhir didn’t like leaving Mytho alone on a normal day, but ever since the events at the theater, he’d stayed as close to his friend as he could.  Whatever Princess Tutu had done to Mytho had devastated him.  He slept most of the day away in fitful nightmares, barely ate, and rarely even asked about the things he usually seemed to show interest in.  It wasn’t difficult to convince Mr. Catt that Mytho was feeling unwell and needed to take a respite, given his breakdown.  But as the days passed, Fakhir felt a certain restlessness growing inside.  He _couldn’t_ just sit by and wait for the next attack.  He needed to act.  But in order to act, he needed to understand his enemy.  
     The town was usually quiet on a Sunday afternoon, which made it easy for Fakhir to hurry from the millhouse down the winding streets to the little alleyway tucked between two larger buildings where almost no one ever went.  He had to hurry because he didn’t know how long Mytho would sleep, and he wanted to be there when his friend woke up.  He approached a dingy, rundown shop with a sign hanging over the door which read _Antiquariat._   No one ever shopped there, nor even opened the squeaky door with its dangling bells that rarely announced visitors.  
     Fakhir stepped inside, his eyes adjusting from the bright sunshine to the suddenly gloomy interior.  Only a single candle was lit inside, on a desk at the far end of the long narrow building.  Shelves rose all around him covered in books and strange objects.  Piles of more books filled the corners.  Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and two or three cats prowled among the stacks in search of the rats that would otherwise threaten the integrity of the sacred pages stored there.  
     A wrinkled old man sat at the desk, his face eerily underlit by the candle.  He looked up when he heard the bells and spotted Fakhir’s towering silhouette.  “I wondered how long it would take you,” he greeted Fakhir, rising creakily from his desk.   
      “You expected me sooner,” Fakhir observed.  
      “As soon as the clock tower rang, I counted the hours it would take you to cross that threshold,” the old man grimaced back.  “You should have reported to us immediately.”  
     “I’ve been preoccupied,” he apologized deferentially.   
     The shopkeeper rounded his desk with the graceful precision of a much younger man.  “You do not have the luxury of being preoccupied,” he growled back.  
     “I didn’t come here for a lecture,” Fakhir hissed through his teeth.  “I came for help.”  
     The shopkeeper appraised him a moment, and then sighed.  “Of course,” he waved him in.  “Tell me now, what wisdom do you seek?”  
     “The story is progressing,” Fakhir informed him unnecessarily.  The clock tower was ample proof of that.  “The Prince is regaining shards of his heart.”  
    The old man’s eyes went suddenly wide and he took a startled step toward Fakhir.  “And you have allowed this?” he asked incredulously.  
     Fakhir balled his hands into fists.  “I’ve done everything I can to discourage it.  But there are forces at play I cannot confront.”  
     Wrath filled the old man’s face.  He took another step toward Fakhir and felled one stinging blow across his cheek with the back of a gnarled old hand.  “Fool!” he cursed.  
     Fakhir didn’t flinch at the force of the blow.  He met the old man’s eyes with firm defiance.  It was hardly the first time he’d been struck.  He didn’t even register the pain.  
      “We chose you as the guardian, Fakhir, because we knew we would grow old and fade and the day would come when we would not be able to fulfill this task!”  The shopkeeper glared down at him, “Have we chosen poorly?”  
     Fakhir worked hard to suppress his temper.  He knew all this.  This old man and the others like him were the only ones aside from Rue and Fakhir for whom time had passed in Goldkrone Towne.  For Rue and Fakhir it meant they had aged, grown up and matured and entered into their strength.  For these who had surrendered their names and taken on the title of Bookmen, the fifteen years of the curse had only brought them old age.  “The Bookmen have guarded the old stories,” Fakhir stated.  “And I have guarded the Prince.  But there is someone in town now, someone you didn’t account for, someone neither of us know anything about.  And that someone is helping the Prince regain the shards of his heart.”  
      “And who is that?” the old man sneered.   
      “Princess Tutu,” Fakhir answered shortly.  The old man’s eyes narrowed and his lips thinned.  He knew as well as Fakhir did that Princess Tutu was an inconsequential character.  But Fakhir needed more than that.  He _needed_ information.  “You have Drosselmeyer’s unabridged works,” he stated as a fact.  “I need to see them.”

***

     Before Princess Tutu began restoring his heart, Mytho had never cared whether he was alone or not.  Being alone, or being around others was essentially the same thing.  Those days were only memories now, and memory too was something that seemed to haunt him more.  Perhaps that’s why he hated being alone now, because when he was by himself strange thoughts and images came to him more frequently.  Like the images that flashed in his head every time Tutu returned a shard of his heart.  Like the memory of _fear._   Why was Princess Tutu in that memory?  Why was she dead?  Was it a memory, or only something that he feared?  He didn’t know.  
      “Princess Tutu,” he sighed.  “What is this feeling that I have when I think about her?  Fear is what I felt in the dream but this is … different.”  A sound startled him and he turned his head, looking to the stairs that led into his loft.  “Who’s there?” he called out.  There was no answer.  “Fakhir?”  Or maybe it was her.  “Tutu?”  
     The thought that it could be Tutu compelled him down the ladder out of the loft, and through the dark shadowy shapes of the millhouse which backed onto the canal.  Again he heard something, the sound of a soft voice from afar.  “Fakhir?” he asked again.  No answer.  “Tutu?”   He approached the canal where bright sunlight bounced off the water, “Tutu?”  
     And to his surprise an unseen voice answered him, “Who’s Tutu?”  
     Mytho gazed around in wonder but couldn’t discern the voice’s direction.  
      “What kind of person is she?”  
     _The water,_ he realized.  _The voice is coming from the water._   He approached the edge of the low wall that faced the canal and leaned on it, looking down.  All he saw was the reflection of his own face.  And then the water shimmered, and there was another face down there, indiscernible beneath the rippling water.  
      “What kind of person is she?” the water asked.  
     A cold shiver ran down his spine, “Someone I fear—” he broke off, unable to say the words.  _Someone I fear I’ve lost.  
_       “You fear her and yet you seek her?” the mysterious being in the water sounded confused.  “How strange.  Why?  Where is she?”  
     Mytho shrugged slightly, “I don’t really know.”  
      “Why do you fear her?”  
     The water had clearly misunderstood him, but before Mytho could open his mouth to correct the strange being he realized it was right.  He feared _for_ her.  But in some small way he also feared her because… “Because she’s been restoring my heart to me.”  And that couldn’t happen, right?  _You need to remember!_   A voice seemed to be screaming from somewhere deep inside his head.  But remember what?  He didn’t know.  Something about his heart, and why it shouldn’t be restored.  
     The being in the water stared up at him with wide eyes.  “You don’t have a heart?” it sounded awed.  
      “No.”  
      “Is it better not to?”  
     He answered without thinking, “Yes.”  
     This seemed to confound the strange creature even more, “Why?”  
     He squinted, struggling to carve the reason out of his memories but all he could see was the dream.  _Queen takes Bishop.  King takes Queen.  “Checkmate.”_   He clutched his head as it began to ache with the effort.  “I don’t know.”  
      “Since when do you not have a heart?” the strange creature wondered in awe.  
     Mytho shrugged, “I have no idea,” he responded.  
      “How did you lose it?”  
     He concentrated, thinking _that_ at least was something he should know.  “Well I—I,” a flash of great red eyes filled his mind.  “I feel as though there were something important that I had to do.”  
      “What’s that?”  
      “I don’t know.”  
     This seemed to strike the creature as odd.  “I want to know, don’t you want to know?”  
     He shook his head, “No.”  
      “Really?”  
      “Probably.”  
     The creature paused, puzzled and intrigued.  “Why don’t you want to know?”  
     Mytho sighed sorrowfully, “It hurts when I try to find out.”  
      “How strange.  You and I are very alike.  Like you, I don’t know what I am either.  But you and I are the opposite.”  
      “What?” Mytho gazed into the water, searching to discern the creature’s face, but could perceive only the red glow that engulfed it.  
      “I want to know so badly that it hurts…” it trailed off with a hint of sadness.  
     A suspicion grew in Mytho’s mind.  “Could it be that you’re—”  
     The water shimmered and rippled.  “You’re a strange person,” it interrupted him.  “If you really don’t want your heart restored, come with me to a place where none will follow you.”  
     Intrigued, Mytho climbed up onto the wall and sat down, his legs dangling over the water.  “Come with you?”  
      “Yes,” the creature invited.  A vortex began to form in the water, a swirling whirlpool that grew wider and wider, and deeper and deeper.  “You’re so strange and I want to know more about you,” it spoke.  The whirlpool grew into a swirling maelstrom.  “I want to know more!” it cried, “I want to know more!”  
     Mytho felt, dimly, that he should be afraid of the water and the thing it was offering.  But for some reason he wasn’t.  He was more afraid of Tutu.  More afraid of the dream.  And more afraid of remembering.  He closed his eyes against the red light being reflected out of the whirlpool and stood up on the low wall.  _A place where none can follow._   And he wouldn’t have to be afraid.  “Okay, I will,” he agreed, and dove headfirst into the maelstrom.

***

     The water had always seemed so calming before, inducing a feeling of tranquil serenity as the little duck paddled across it.  But now all she could feel was distress while she swam along with the gentle current of the canal.  Because deep in her heart she knew she didn’t want to be a duck.  She wanted to be a girl.  She wanted to be Aria.  She gazed up at the dorms as she slowly passed them by, spotting easily her own window where she’d woken up that first morning after dreaming of dancing with Mytho.  _At least I won’t have to worry about things like being put on probation anymore,_ she realized mournfully.  She quacked sorrowfully and turned away.  
     The sound of a hand organ drifted down over the water and she looked up again.  _Miss Edel!_   “Quack!” she called out, and the sound of her own voice distressed her further.  
     Miss Edel turned toward the water, her large eyes landing easily on the little duck.  “Would you like to buy some gems?” she asked.  A soft sad smile touched her painted face.  “A bird’s world.  A girl’s world.  The fabled and the real world.  The gem that links your two worlds.”  She reached into her gem tray and extracted Aria’s pendant, holding it up to glisten in the light of the sun.  “Will you cut that link?” she asked poignantly.  
      “Quack?”  The little duck stared wide-eyed at the bright jewel she’d thrown away.  _How did she find it?  It was at the bottom of the canal!  
_      Edel reached down again and now she also held her uniform, folded neatly in her hands.  Placing the pendant on the uniform, she offered the package to the tiny bird.  “Now that you’ve finally bridged the two?”  
     Inching forward over the flowing water, her heart pounding, and her little legs paddling with all her might to hold herself still on the water’s surface, the little duck stared wide-eyed at the great gift being offered her.  A second chance.  _A second chance as Aria.  A second chance at Gold Crown Academy, at dancing and living, and friends and…_ and Princess Tutu.  A second chance to hurt the Prince further.  A second chance to make things worse.  
      “Quack!” she squawked angrily, and turned away.  _It doesn’t matter!_   As fast as her legs could kick, she peddled downstream away from the temptation being offered to her.  
     Behind her Edel looked down and sighed sadly.  “A girl’s world.  A puppet’s world.  The mortal and the spirit world.”  With a touch of one finger she opened her jewel tray and extracted the white gem of hope the girl Aria had been so intrigued by.  She held it up to the light and it shone as if lit by an inner radiance, balancing it on her palm she drew forth the red pendant and laid the two side by side.  “Dare you sever those strings?”     
     She clenched her fist around the jewels and opened it again.  The red pendant glowed now, shining as if lit from within while beside it the white jewel pulsed.  “Now to finally bridge the two.”  
     Meanwhile the little duck was swimming furiously downstream, unaware in her anguish that the current was getting faster and stronger.  She rounded a wide curve as the water frothed into white caps, and her eyes went wide in panic.  A wave struck her in the face, tumbling her under water, and she struggled to right herself and reach the surface.  _Wh-what!?  What’s going on?  
_      Gasping for air, her eyes beheld an awful sight.  The midst of the canal was gone, only a swirling whirlpool remained that was sucking the water down and down into unfathomable depths.  _That’s impossible!_   But more alarming than that was the movement that caught her eye on the canal wall.  Someone stood there, his blue and white uniform distinct against the leaves that framed him, his glistening white-blonde hair unmistakable.  _Mytho?  What is he—  
_      Quite suddenly he jumped, twisting into a graceful dive, and struck the center of the whirlpool twirling down into the deep.  
      “Quack!” was the sound she made, but the scream in her head was very real and very human.  _Mytho!  
_      He sank into the maelstrom, and throwing caution and fear for her own life to the wind, the little duck stopped fighting the swirling vortex and instead swam straight toward it.  She hit the event horizon and the current took over, spinning her round and round in increasingly tight spirals that wound down to the center of the whirlpool where Mytho disappeared amidst the glow of an awful red light.  Taking one final breath, the little duck hit the center and dove down beneath the water’s surface.  The violent current continued, aiding her dive to draw her downward, but she realized she had no hope of reaching Mytho in time.  He was swimming deeper as if drawn downward by some invisible source.  
     _How long can he hold his breath?_ She wondered desperately, even as her own lungs burned for air.  The canal should have ended at a stone bed no more than twenty feet down, but they were much deeper than that now with no sight of a bottom.  _What is this?_ she wondered, letting out as much air as she dared to help herself sink further and faster through the swirling vortex.  _I can’t catch up to him._    
     At that moment Mytho stopped swimming, and the little duck stared in horror down at him as his pale face turned lifelessly toward her.  
     _No!_   It couldn’t be.  _He_ couldn’t be!  Oh why did she have to be so useless!  _If only I could become Princess Tutu one more time, I could save him!  
_      Something glistened just past the end of her beak, sinking slowly.  
     _Is that…?  But how could it be?  
_      She didn’t pause to question it, instead she put on one last burst of speed and nosed her head through the loop of a chain.  At once the sensation of a thousand bees crawling over her skin became one with the golden warmth she associated with transforming into Tutu, and suddenly she was human and whole but trapped beneath an unimaginable weight of water.   
     With power radiating around her, Tutu swam to Mytho’s side, wrapping her arms around him even as she focused on the water that entombed them.  The vortex continued to draw her downward, further from the welcome relief of the surface, and she was powerless to push against it.  So instead she pulled the air out of the water, creating a safe bubble around herself and Mytho.  Her feet touched something, and then she was half-kneeling on wet stone with the unconscious Prince in her arms.  He wasn’t breathing.  
      “No!” she gasped, tears stinging her eyes.  She placed one white hand on his chest and focused her power again, drawing out the water trapped in his lungs.  She had to be careful, and she wasn’t sure how she knew how to do it, but after a couple seconds of intense concentration the Prince coughed and gasped and his eyes fluttered open.  
      “Princess Tutu!” he croaked when he finally caught his breath.  
     She was so relieved to see him awake and breathing that she forgot for a moment that she was the thing he feared.  She smiled down at him widely, “It’s alright now, my Prince,” she soothed, “you’re safe.”  
      “Safe?” he sounded puzzled, still disoriented from his near-drowning.  
     Tutu cast a look around their little bubble at the bottom of the canal.  She couldn’t see a surface and she knew that wasn’t right.  The canal wasn’t that deep.  But she also knew their little air pocket would only support them for so long.  Fortunately the vortex seemed to have eased, and the water above them was calm once more.  _We have to go._ She looked back at Mytho and smiled again, “Please come with me, my Prince.”  
      “Princess Tutu?” another voice echoed out, seeming to emanate from the water itself.  “The person that you’re afraid of?”  
     Tutu jumped, releasing Mytho and casting around wildly for the source of the voice.  She rose shakily to her feet and retreated a step or two.  They were alone here at the bottom of the canal.  _So who is speaking?_  “Wh-who are you?”  
      “You’re Princess Tutu?” the voice asked, ignoring her question.  “Why do you restore his heart to him?”  
     She spun around in alarm, searching everywhere.  _Is this the thing that lured Mytho into the water?  What could it be?_   Her mind filled with all sorts of possibilities.  Selkies, kelpies, sirens, mermaids… those were all spirits that lured men underwater weren’t they?  But they were just stories.  _And the Prince is a storybook character… and so am I._ “That’s—” she struggled with it, even as she searched for their unseen antagonist, ready to fight if necessary.  But the fight went out of her when she turned and her eyes fell on Mytho.  He was staring at her, the watery blue light casting eerie shadows across his face, and he looked… sad.  
     Something inside her broke and it took all that she had not to cry.  “That’s because I thought that was best for him,” she heard herself answering the water’s question.  Her voice wavered and she crossed her arms over her chest almost unconsciously in the mime for love.  “There are painful emotions like sorrow and loneliness, but there are also good feelings too like joy and love.”  As she spoke, her eyes stayed on Mytho who sat where she’d left him.  She bent down, bowing toward him, “I wanted to get those feelings back for you,” she murmured.  She looked up and their eyes met, “Because I believed you would be happier that way.”  The tears that had been stinging her eyes flowed over, “Because I never imagined you would suffer so much for what I’d done!”  
     She collapsed to her knees and covered her face with her hands, weeping bitterly.  
     Mytho, alarmed enough to rise and cross hesitantly toward her, knelt beside her.  “Don’t cry Tutu,” he said softly.  She looked up at him, tears still running down her face.  “I’ll come back with you,” he promised, holding out his hand.  
     Tutu stared at that hand as she wiped her tears away.  She hadn’t meant to cry.  She hadn’t meant to hurt him.  She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen.   
      “…you’re afraid of her,” the watery voice returned, “yet you’re going with her?  How strange?”  
     She barely registered the words.  Her eyes were on Mytho’s hand hovering before her face.  He was reaching out to her, to comfort her, the expression he wore one of fervent earnestness and something warm came alive inside her.  She reached slowly toward him half-fearing he would extract the offered hand, but he didn’t and his warm palm slid over her cold one.  His fingers tightened around hers and he pulled her to her feet and into the circle of his arms.  He embraced her loosely, their hands still clasped together, his other hand resting tenderly on the small of her back.  Tutu almost lost herself in the warm golden depths of his amber eyes.  
     But they weren’t out of danger yet.  Already the air in their bubble was starting to grow thin.  Pulling on her powers, she forced their bubble upward toward the distant surface.  It took far longer than it should have.  The sky above had grown dark during their sojourn at the bottom of the canal, and when at last they breached the surface, she gasped in a lungful of fresh air gratefully.  The water swelled beneath them at her behest, a great wave that lifted them over the level of the canal, and they stepped lightly down into a grassy glade at the eastern edge of the town wall.   
      “Thank you for saving me,” Mytho murmured to her warmly.  
      “Oh!” she gasped, realizing herself and pulling away from him.  “I um—I’m sorry but—” she looked away, suddenly nervous and uncertain.  Tears stung at her eyes again.  “I’m afraid this will be the last time.”  
     His eyes went wide, his expression stricken.  
      “I promise to never appear before you again,” Tutu swore to him, “So don’t worry.”  
     Despite her words, Mytho looked very worried.  
     Not trusting her own resolution if she drew out the goodbye, Tutu stepped away from him, “Well I guess this is—”  
      “Wait!” he called after her.  
     She froze in her steps, her back to him in the very action of leaving.  
      “I understand a little of what I’m feeling right now,” his soft voice floated to her ears.  
     Tutu paled, her hands flying to her mouth.  _What!?  
_       “These are feelings of loneliness and sorrow.”  Mytho paused, “I don’t want you to just disappear.”  
     Something of her resolution slipped and she hung her head.  “But I haven’t brought you anything but pain.”  
      “I don’t care,” and for once his voice sounded absolutely sure.  “Even if it hurts, when I think of you, I can feel a small light kindled and coming to life in my heart.”  
     Her breath caught in her throat.  
     She turned to see him over her shoulder.  “So—so can I,” she gasped.  
     He took another step toward her, face earnest.  “If you were to disappear I feel like that light would be snuffed out and vanish with you.”  A look of understanding touched his eyes, “That’s what I fear.”  
     Tutu turned to face him fully, gazing into those beautiful eyes of liquid amber.  
      “I want you to restore my heart, Princess Tutu.”  
     Her mouth dropped open in surprise.  
     Mytho turned his head to look at the canal, “The thing possessing this river is most likely my desire for knowledge,” he took another step toward her, close enough to reach out and embrace her again.  “Return it to my heart,” he entreated.  
      “But—” she stared at him in astonishment.   
     And then even more astonishingly, a glowing red heart shard rose up out of the river and joined them on shore.  “I see,” it said, identifying itself as the source of the strange voice she had heard.  “So I am you.”  
      “Are you really sure?” Tutu asked, unable to tear her eyes from Mytho’s face.  
     Mytho nodded, “Yes.”  
     Swallowing nervously, Tutu stepped past him toward the heart shard and held out her hands.  It reformed in her palm as the familiar glittering jewel, and she turned back to the Prince.  He was watching her and something in his eyes made butterflies swoop low through her belly.  She couldn’t imagine a more perfect moment than this and she opened her hands again, as ready to restore Mytho’s heart as he was to have it restored.  
     The world suddenly erupted between them.  
     A great wind whipped up out of nowhere.  It tore at her limbs and threw dirt in her eyes.  Tutu flung up an arm to protect her face as the whirlwind swirled and lashed at her, ripping the heart shard right out of her hand.  She gazed in shock at her empty palms, trying to sort out what was going on.  Above them, at the center of the violent windstorm, a dark figure descended, twirling out of the sky.  
     Tutu’s mouth gaped.  Standing before them was a girl perhaps her own age, with hair as black as the night sky bound up elaborately on her head.  Her face was disguised behind theatrical makeup, done up pale with blood-red lips and exquisitely made up eyes.  She was garbed in a striking black ballet gown complete with stiff black tutu, black pointe shoes, and a plunging neckline that left little to the imagination regarding her figure.   
      “Who are you?” Tutu demanded of the intruder when she had regained her voice.  
     The girl in the black ballet gown stared back at her challengingly.  “Don’t you recognize me, Princess Tutu?” she asked mockingly, one hand propped on a hip in a challenging pose.  “You should know your own rival, after all.”  
      “R-Rival?”  
     She threw back her head and laughed, the cackling sound drifting off into the dark sky.  “I am Princess Krähe,” she announced defiantly.   
     Tutu remained at a loss.  “Princess Krähe?”  
     The girl in black sauntered forward, a wicked smile upon her face.  “That’s right,” she purred.  “Princess Krähe, and these…” she held out her hand and Tutu gazed at it… and then past it… seeing suddenly the ravenous flock of crows which had descended on them perched on every available surface their small clearing afforded.  “…are my subjects.”  
     A sick feeling twisted in the pit of her stomach.  Was this the villain of the story?  _Is this the Raven?_   Her eyes went back to Krähe’s face.  “A Princess of Crows?”  
     Krähe’s wicked smile widened into a grin, “That’s right Tutu.  And tell me, where is your army?”  
     Baffled, Tutu could only gape at her.  “My army?”  
      “Of course.  If you want to battle for the Prince’s affections, my dear Tutu, you will need an army to defeat me.”  
      “Battle … for his affection?”  She looked over at Mytho quickly, but he seemed as astonished as she was.  Numbly, Tutu turned back to Krähe, “What do you mean?”  
      “Isn’t it obvious?” the girl in black asked, artfully affecting surprise.  “I am the Prince’s true bride, promised to him from the beginning, come to claim him from the interloper who sought my place.”  
     Tutu went numb.  “What?”  
     Krähe held up her hand, turning a shining red jewel over between her long slender fingers.  “What is this, I wonder?” she exulted.  
     Recognizing the shard, Tutu leapt forward, “Give it back!” she cried.  
      “Not on your life!”  Krähe laughed lightly, closing her fist around the shard.  The birds in the trees fluttered their wings and Tutu paused, looking fearfully up at the sheer force of them surrounding her.  Krähe noticed her hesitation, a smug expression taking over her face.  “I will give you nothing,” she croaked.  “I will let you do nothing.”  
      “Why?” Tutu breathed in disbelief.  “Why would you do this?”  
     Krähe’s beautiful face twisted into something ugly.  “Because he is mine!” she shouted, whipping out one arm in defiance.  
     The wind struck Tutu in the stomach, doubling her over and throwing her to the ground.  Mytho leapt forward as if to aid her, but Krähe grasped him with one pale claw.  “Stay away from the prince!” she exclaimed.  And then the world erupted again and the flock of crows simultaneously took flight, swirling around their Princess and the Prince.  
     When the sky cleared Tutu saw that she was all alone.  “Mytho?” she whispered, tears in her voice.  She leapt to her feet, “Mytho!” she cried.  But there was no response.  
     She was all alone.

***

     He’d been gone too long.  Anxiety twisted at the pit of Fakhir’s stomach as he hurried through the darkened streets back to the millhouse.  He’d allowed himself to get too engrossed in his research, and hadn’t noticed as the day had turned into dusk, and the dusk into night.  It was late now and Mytho had been all alone for hours.  Fear of what might have happened while he was gone spurred Fakhir forward, and he fairly flew the last two blocks to the old millhouse which was their sanctuary now.  
     He threw open the door and charged inside, “Mytho!” he called out, expecting an answer but receiving none.  The anxiety that was growing in his chest turned into cold fear.  “Mytho!” he called again, more urgently now.  He ran for the ladder and climbed it only to find the loft empty.  Mytho was nowhere in sight.  _Idiot!_ he admonished himself harshly.  _It’s your fault!_  
     Turning, he descended back to the ground and spun about, “Where could he have gone?”  
     The door of the millhouse, which had half-closed behind Fakhir when he charged inside, swung suddenly open and a dark figure loomed up, framed against it.  
     Fakhir was immediately on guard, his hands going up to fight.  “Who are you?” he demanded.  
     The intruder didn’t reply.  Instead he took one step inside and collapsed.  
     Fakhir’s hands fell to his side and the cold fear turned to dread.  “Mytho—” he choked out.  He rushed to his fallen friend’s side.  “Mytho, get up!” he fairly begged.  Then his eyes fell on something else.  Lying beside the Prince, dark in a patch of moonlight that fell in a square on the floor, was a single black feather.  
     With cold fingers Fakhir plucked the feather off the floor and held it up to that light.  Something clenched within him.  “I see,” he muttered darkly, everything suddenly so clear.  “So you’ve finally made your appearance.”  He looked up at the sky and saw it now, on the roof of the building across the street.  A great murder of crows was congregating, and at their center was something that almost looked human in form.  He wrapped a fist around the feather, crushing it.  “I’ve been waiting for you.”

 


	15. Der Schatten

**_The Shadow_ **

 

     “Ah good!  Good, good!”  The spirit laughed gleefully as he looked on from the sands of time.  “I couldn’t have planned it better myself, puppet,” he said, turning to throw one gloating look at his companion.  “Not just one, but two princesses now!  Vying for the Prince’s favor!”  
      “You don’t think that will unnecessarily complicate things?” she asked.  
      “Bah!” he threw off her concern with a dismissive wave.  “Insurance!  If Tutu fails now, Krähe can finish the job.”  
      “But can she?”  
     He growled between clenched teeth.  “I don’t need your negativity, puppet.”  Suddenly sour, the spirit turned to the sands of time and waved his hand, “I’ll show you how right I am.”   
     An image suddenly reflected out from them.  The little duck, no longer Tutu now, was wandering aimlessly through the town calling out for the Prince.  “You see,” he said, “everything’s going exactly as planned.  I’ve got my heroine back, and she’s not doing anything stupid like throwing away my gift anymore.”   
      “It’s become unpredictable,” his companion commented neutrally, “difficult to control.”  
     The spirit _harrumphed_ , ignoring her, his eyes still pasted on the little girl.  She was at the dorm’s courtyard now, bending down and picking up pebbles from the graveled walk.  She started throwing them, her arm surprisingly good as they struck a window three stories above.  _Then again, she threw that pendant a lot farther than I thought she could have,_ he gnashed his teeth together.  “What’s she doing…” he mused.  
     The sands shifted, obeying his curiosity, and showed a lopsided angle of the room past the window.  Wilting roses shed petals from a small bud vase, and beyond it the Prince was lying in a bed eyes closed in the serene expression of sleep.  
      “Ah so he’s returned,” the spirit nodded thoughtfully.  “Krähe must have lost her nerve, to let him go so soon.”  
      “She is not fully herself just yet,” his companion gently reminded him.  
     He _harrumphed_ again, irritated at her constant negativity.  And just when things had started to get interesting too!   
     _“Her again,”_ the Prince’s dark-haired companion spoke from the window, gazing down to see the little duck throwing pebbles.  _“Persistent girl.”_  
     _“Fakhir,”_ the Prince was awake now, drawing his comrade’s attention.  _“Where’s Tutu?”_  
     Almost as irritated as the spirit who watched him, Fakhir turned to the Prince sitting up in his bed, _“Don’t worry.  Tutu is long gone.  What happened?”_  
     The Prince clutched his head, _“Tutu helped me.  She tried to restore part of my heart to me.”_  
     Fakhir’s eyes went wide with alarm and the spirit cackled with glee.  _“Mytho, you know that—”_  
     _That’s when Krähe came._ ”  
      “Yes, yes!” the spirit chortled delightfully, “My dear sweet crow to contend with the swan!  What a wonderful tale I weave!”  
     _“Krähe?”_ Fakhir closed one hand into a fist, clearly struggling to maintain his calm.  
     _“Yes.  Krähe.  She was dressed like a black bird and she took the piece.”_   The Prince shuddered.  _“Tell me Fakhir, wouldn’t it—”_ he wrapped his arms around himself, _“wouldn’t it be better for me if I regained all the pieces of my heart?”_  
      “Yes my dear Prince, it would!” leaning closer to the sands of time, the spirit’s eyes were wide as he watched, engrossed.  “And even better for me!”  
     Fakhir pushed the Prince back down against the pillows, _“Forget about it,”_ he said harshly.  _“Listen to me.  I brought you back here because I thought it would be safer to have people around.  Bury your worries in sleep.”_    
     The Prince sighed and closed his eyes, and the spirit did a howling jig, throwing back his head and dancing around in wild joy.  
      “Things are going splendidly!  Splendidly!  The Prince wants his heart back now, which means Tutu will fail to disappoint!  It’s only a matter of days now, my puppet, and then all shall go as I’ve planned.  And there you were worried about time running out, when we have all the time in the world!”  
      “You’re forgetting about Krähe,” she threw in, interrupting his jig.  “She’s awake now, and if she sees Tutu as her rival, she may interfere with those plans.”  
     He stopped dancing and blinked at her, “Why do you always have to go around dashing my moments of triumph with your _logic?”_  
     She bent in a half bow toward him, “I am what you made me, Master.”  
      “Bah!” he waved her off and turned back to the sands.  Gesturing over them, they moved at his command and shifted to show another view of another room, almost identically laid out to the one before, it’s opposite in every way.  
     Still dressed in her school uniform, Rue lay atop the covers of her bed sleeping fitfully.  As they watched she started awake, and looked up to see a glowing red light emanating from her jewelry box.   
      “She kept the shard with her, I see,” his companion noted.  
     Meanwhile, Rue was on her feet, approaching the jewelry box as if it contained a snake.  _“W-what is this?”_   her voice trembled with fear.  She picked up the box and opened it.  
     _“Why?”_ a voice asked suddenly from the shadows of her room.  
     Screaming, she dropped the box and spun to find her intruder.  _“Who’s there?”_  
     _“Why did you bring me back with you?”_ the glowing red emanation of the Prince’s heart asked, facing her.  
      “You see,” the spirit gestured at the girl, “It’s instinct, she’s programmed to collect the shards of the Prince’s heart.  A simple work of narration.”  
      “But will she return them?”  
     _“You—you’re Mytho’s—”_ Rue cut herself off, her hand covering her mouth in her shock.  _“I—I brought you with me, what do you mean?”_  
     It laughed lightly, _“You want to know a lot, don’t you?  I understand how you feel because I am the desire for knowledge.”_  
      “Pssht!”  The spirit hissed, “That’s not even a real emotion!”  
      “Your own curiosity gets the better of you sometimes, Master.”  
     He glared at his companion, “Mind your own business, puppet!”  
     _“Desire for knowledge?”_   Rue stammered.   
     _“You don’t remember how you brought me here?”_   It moved toward her but she dodged away.  
     _“I brought you?”_ she gasped, _“You’re lying!”_  
     _“Why do you don black feathers?”_ it asked, circling her now.  
     Rue’s eyes widened and something shattered in those eyes.  
      “That’s right my dear, remember?” the spirit grinned down at her, “Remember who you are now?”  
     _“No!”_ she cried out, dodging away from the glowing shard.  
      _“Do you have a special power within you?”_ it persisted, floating up to perch on a rafter over her head.  _“Come on, tell me, which one is the real you?”_  
     _“Stop it!”_ she cried, covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut as if she were a small child.  
     _“Who are you really?”_ it demanded.  
     _“Stop!”_ she cried out again.  She opened her eyes and saw that the heart shard had reformed as a jewel in the jewelry box.  For a moment she stared at it, enthralled and afraid, and then quickly she closed the box and swept it into the top drawer of her dresser, slamming the dresser shut.  
     The sands shifted and the view disappeared.  The spirit straightened up, fury in his eyes.  “That wretch of a girl can never get anything right!”  
      “I suggested as much, if you’ll recall,” his companion replied.  “What will you do now?”  
     Pacing, the spirit tapped a finger against his chin, his mind racing.  “All is not lost yet.  The story was in want of a villain.  If my Krähe cannot play the heroine, perhaps I’ll have another role carved out for her yet.”

***

     Disappointed by her fruitless search, although she’d stayed out all night combing the town for any sign of Mytho, Aria finally had to admit defeat and return to her room.  Dawn had come and she’d found no indication of where the strange Krähe had taken the Prince.  Sandy-eyed and stumbling, she walked the long corridor to her room in desolation.  _I have time to change into my uniform and get to school early to search for Mytho there.  Maybe he’ll come to class today, now that he’s no longer afraid of Princess Tutu._   She wondered if that was a fool’s hope.  
      “Aria!”  
     She looked up to see Piqué and Lillie hurtling toward her.  Both girls had clearly just come from the communal bathroom, as they were still in their robes.  Lille’s hair was wrapped up in a towel, curlers peeking out underneath.  
      “How did it go?” Lillie demanded, grasping Aria’s arms excitedly.  “Did he say anything?”  
      “What?” she asked, baffled, too tired to make sense of what her friend was saying.  
      “Mytho,” Piqué elaborated.  “You went to his window to confess your feelings to him, right?”  
      “Window?” she repeated, in shock.   
      “Oh, it was so romantic!” Lillie clasped her hands and gazed off rapturously, lost in her strange fantasy.  “It was like a reverse Romeo and Juliet!”  
      “Yeah, except it was all one-sided,” Piqué elbowed Lillie sharply in the ribs.  
      “No, it wasn’t like that,” Aria quickly shook her head, struggling to shush them before anyone could overhear their all too indiscreet hallway conversation.  She could spot two or three doors at least which had tactlessly opened far enough to overhear the gossip developing.  “I was just looking for him. It’s been over a week since his episode, and I wanted to know if he was okay.”  
      “Oh, you don’t have to hide it from us,” Lillie gushed, “Even if you were rejected, it was still romantic.”  
      “I wasn’t rejected!” Aria cried out in alarm, “There wasn’t even anyone there!”  
     But of course, that didn’t matter to the gossips on campus.  By the time Aria had changed her clothes, and Lillie had removed the curlers from her hair, the rumor had already spread that Aria was scorned by the school’s number one heartthrob.  By the time she stepped out of the girl’s dormitory flanked by Piqué and Lillie, the buzz was that Aria’s persistence over her unrequited feelings was the cause behind Mytho’s breakdown.  And before she was even halfway to school, the story had grown that she was carrying his love child and threatening to spill all to Rue if he didn’t give her a thousand Reichsmark and promise to marry her after graduation.  
     Happily, Aria was distracted from worrying about rumors when a familiar voice called out her name as she was crossing Norden Lebenszeit.  
      “Aria!” the voice cried again.  
     Aria swung around to see Miss Paulamoni running toward her.  
      “Hey isn’t that Miss Eleki?” Piqué asked.  
      “She was so beautiful in Sleeping Beauty,” Lillie affirmed, reminding Aria that she had missed the ballet.  
      “I’ll catch up with you two,” Aria said quickly, seizing the opportunity to dodge away from them.  They’d yet to stop pestering her about her fictional morning rendezvous.  She jogged over to Miss Paulamoni.  “You were looking for me?” she asked, puzzled to be singled out by the glamorous woman.  
     Paulamoni smiled down at her, “Yes,” she admitted a bit sheepishly.  “I was actually hoping to see you on your way to class today.”  
      “Oh!” Aria’s eyes went wide as she wondered why that could be.  She realized then that she hadn’t even attended any of Miss Paulamoni’s performances, and was immediately contrite.  She’d been so involved in her own misery she’d completely forgotten about the troupe’s presence in town.  
      “Yes, I wanted to see you one last time before we left,” Paulamoni was saying to her.  She made a strange face, “I hope you won’t mind me being so forward, but I feel as if I’ve known you since we first met.  I couldn’t imagine leaving Goldkrone Towne without saying goodbye.”  
     Aria was touched, “Th-thank you,” she stammered, not knowing what else to say.  She wished she could say it without blushing.  
      “Oh!” Paulamoni reached into her purse and pulled out a strangely shaped brown paper package.  “I also wanted to give you these.”  
     Her blush deepened, “Oh, you really didn’t have to get me anything,” she spoke up quickly.  
     Paulamoni pressed the package into her hands.  “I didn’t get it, exactly,” she stated.  “I’ve actually had them for years.  I always thought one day I’d wear them, when I felt like I was truly good enough to dance Aurora the way it was meant to be danced.”  
     Puzzled, Aria unrolled the package, and a pair of brand new looking white pointe shoes fell into her hands.  “Oh!” she exclaimed softly, turning the beautiful pair of shoes over.  “I-I can’t accept these!  You should wear them, like you said, when you dance Aurora.”  
     The woman smiled, “Oh, I won’t be dancing Aurora anymore.  The Eleki Troupe has finally put on its last performance of Sleeping Beauty.”  
     Her eyes went wide, “Why?”  
     Paulamoni’s smile widened, “Paulo wrote me a new a ballet, a completely original piece written just for me.  I won’t be needing these shoes anymore, Aria.  I think they deserve to be worn by someone far better than me.”  
     Aria looked away, embarrassed and uncomfortable.  “I’m nowhere near as good as you,” she murmured.  
     With a light touch, Paulamoni lifted Aria’s chin, forcing her gaze up.  “On the contrary, my dear.  You have the talent, I think, to surpass me in every way.  Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”  
     A flash like a camera went off in Aria’s head.  
     _“What can I hope to do, Miss P?  I’m nothing at all like you.”_  
     _“My dear, when your time comes, you will surpass me in every way.”_  
     The flash in her head turned to a blinding white light, and she pressed her hand to her temple to quell the accompanying stab of pain.  When she opened her eyes she saw, to her surprise, Miss Paulamoni doing the same.  A strange light of understanding lit the woman’s face.  “I don’t think I’ll be coming back this way again,” she murmured, her tone suddenly dark.  She gazed at Aria in serious earnestness, “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself?”  
     Thoughts whirling, Aria could only nod.  
     The strange ballerina gazed at her in concern for a moment more, and then abruptly she turned and walked quickly away.  
     _What just happened?_   Aria wondered in awe.  _Did Miss Paulamoni see the flash of light too?_   But that was impossible.  Wasn’t it?  
     In a daze, Aria turned back toward campus.  Piqué and Lillie were waiting for her at the gate.  “What did she want?” Piqué asked curiously.  
     Aria stared at her blankly, “Huh?”  
      “Miss Eleki, what did she want?”  
     Aria looked down at the package in her hands and clutched it more tightly, “She had something to give me.”  
      “What is it?” Lillie demanded, wide eyes staring at the conspicuous package.  “Let us see!” she exclaimed, pawing at Aria’s clenched hands.  
     Aria clutched the package more tightly against her but it was no good, and Lillie succeeded in opening it far enough to glimpse the white pointe shoes within.  
      “Oh!” she breathed, “they’re beautiful!”  Her wide eyes looked up euphorically at Aria, “It’s too bad you’re such a poor student you’ll never get to wear them onstage.”  
      “Stop it!” Piqué chided her harshly, slapping Lillie’s arms.  “They’re pretty,” she told Aria, and then forcefully steered the three girls toward the school.  “We’re going to be late for class if we don’t hurry.”  
     But suddenly Aria didn’t want to go to class.  Maybe it was the long sleepless night, maybe it was the incredible stress of being Princess Tutu and living between two worlds, or maybe it was the school cafeteria food, but Aria suddenly didn’t feel well.  “Excuse me,” she said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”  
      “Duck!” Piqué called after her, but Aria dashed quickly away toward a line of shrubs bordering the nearest building.  She dropped to her knees, stomach rolling and skin clammy.  She clutched at the ground, willing herself not to be sick with her eyes squeezed shut and wishing that she had just crawled under the covers back in her room and never come out.  There she sat until the strangely sudden nausea had passed.  She couldn’t have said how long she’d sat there, and she didn’t even care who might see her.  Eventually a shadow fell over her and she was grateful to be out from the hot, bright sun.  
      “I’ll just be a minute Piqué, go on without me.”  
      “Aria?”  
     Her eyes flew open in shock. _What?_   There was only one person at school her called her that.  She twisted around and looked up into Mytho’s beautiful eyes.   
      “What are you doing?” he asked her.  
      “Mytho,” she gasped, her sudden sickness completely forgotten.  “You’re all right.”  Without even thinking about it she leapt to her feet and threw her arms around him in an ebullient embrace.  “I’m so glad!”  
     At precisely that moment she remembered she wasn’t Princess Tutu, and they weren’t really alone, and here she was in the middle of campus surrounded by everyone boldly hugging Mytho while the rumormongers rapidly spread increasingly scathing word of the nature of their relationship.  She immediately flushed and stepped quickly away from him.  “I’m so sorry!  I’m so sorry!”  She stared at the ground, wishing she could keep herself from turning as red as her hair.  “I looked all over town but I couldn’t find you and so I was wondering what had happened to you, and now seeing you’re okay it’s such a relief and…” she bit her own tongue to cut off the babbling ramble.  She ended up staring at the ground contritely.  “I’m just glad that you’re okay.”  
      “You were looking for me?” he asked, appearing unbothered by her strange greeting.  
      “Yeah, I—” she looked up and saw the confusion on his face.  Aria slapped a hand across her mouth.  _That’s right!  He doesn’t know that I’m Princess Tutu!_  
      “Tutu?” he asked, stepping closer.  “Do you know about Tutu?”  
     Her eyes widened in fright.  _Did I just say that out loud!?_  
      “Uh, um, well…” she trailed off nonsensically.  
      “What are you doing?” a sharp voice cut in suddenly.  
     A cold chill sliced through her soul, and the wave of nausea returned in full force when Aria looked up.  A dark figure was leaning out over the balustrade of the breezeway above them, his face like a thundercloud.  Between one frantic heartbeat and the next, the unwelcome intruder hopped lightly onto the sill of that window and leapt out to land impossibly only a few feet away.  He stalked toward them like some sort of dark avenging angel.  
      “Fakhir,” she gasped, something as close to terror as she had ever felt lancing through her.  
     He gazed at her scornfully before turning to Mytho.  “Mytho, you go ahead.  I’ll be right there.”  
      “Okay,” Mytho agreed placidly, blindly obeying Fakhir as he always did.  
     Aria’s eyes followed him while he walked away toward Noverre Hall and part of her wanted to scream after him to stay.  To protect her.  She didn’t even know where it came from, that unreasoning fear and childlike belief that Mytho _only Mytho_ could make the monsters go away.  
      “Now you,” Fakhir’s dark voice split the silence and ripped her attention back to him.  
     Aria jumped and spun to face him, suddenly pale and shaking.  
     He regarded her stoically for a long minute.  “I’ve thought this over for days,” he hissed at her, “You were the only one who wasn’t in the theater last week, and you’ve got an annoying habit of poking your nose into things that are none of your business.”  
     Aria went suddenly white.   
      “Listen carefully,” he told her, leaning close.  “If I find out you’re the one restoring Mytho’s heart, I will stop at nothing to end you.  Never come near Mytho again.  If you do, I’ll make sure you pay for it.”  
     Aria looked up to see his green eyes cutting through her.  A shadow in those eyes triggered something buried deep inside her.  Pain, sharp and stabbing ripped into her just over her heart and tore her breath away.  She felt her knees shaking, terror rising in her throat.  He held her gaze for a second longer before turning away.  But Aria was still paralyzed.  She stood there as the school clock chimed and bells rang in the distance, and those few students still lingering on the campus grounds went hurrying toward their classes in fear of tardy slips.  Deep down she knew she should do the same, she should do the right thing and go to class and act normally, but she couldn’t.  Instead she turned and ran as fast as her feet could carry her.  Away from the school she ran, deep into the wooded grounds that backed right up to the buildings.  Sweet blossomy things tore at her sleeves as she fled into the clearing where she had first used her powers as Tutu to return a shard of Mytho’s heart, and there her knees finally gave out and she collapsed to the ground gasping at the air.  
     The fear remained.  Clawing inside her as though it sought to escape.  She choked on it.  Everything in her world narrowed down to that paralyzing sensation of cold terror.  And somewhere in the back of it, something else flickered—not quite a memory but more like the recollection of a dream.  The feeling of being pinned to the ground by pain, choking on fear, unable to move.  Unable to breathe.  Time stopped as she knelt there and it could have been seconds, _and it could have been years…_  
     It was the sound of a hand organ that finally brought Aria to herself, and she looked up to see Edel standing in the gazebo winding the crank that elicited the tinny music.  
      “Edel?” she asked, blinking uncomprehendingly up at the strange woman.  She wondered how long the woman had been standing there.  
     Edel turned slowly toward her, “Hello Duck.”  
     Pushing herself painfully to her feet, Aria crossed toward Edel.  The woman put aside her hand organ and sat down on the step of the gazebo.  She patted the marble beside her invitingly, and Aria dropped down to her knees in the grass beside the step.  “Miss Edel, I don’t understand.”  
      “What is it you don’t understand?” she asked in her sing-song voice.  
     Aria’s tongue stumbled over the answer, tripping up her thoughts.  “Something about him scares me,” she said at last, her voice barely a whisper.  As she spoke she stared at the ground, swirling a finger idly through the crumpled pleat of her skirt.  “Mytho shouldn’t be with someone like that, I think he’s dangerous, but… what should I do?”  She gazed away, unconsciously pressing a hand against the stinging memory of that pain just over her heart.   
     Edel’s knowing gaze scrutinized her.  With one hand the peddler opened her jewel tray and extracted a single gem, holding it up to the light.  “The name of this gem is courage,” she sang softly.  
     Aria looked at it and saw that it was shaped something like a lopsided heart.  It was a deep, deep red that glowed when the light caught it, and lessened that tightly wound feeling of fear inside of her.  
      “A single gem made of two.”  
     _A single gem made of two._   Aria’s eyes widened in realization.  “Does that mean I should work together with someone?” _But who?_  
     Edel’s eyes studied her silently as if willing her to understand some secret meaning.  
     Mytho’s face suddenly flashed in her mind as he told Princess Tutu he wanted her to restore his heart.  _If I told Mytho the truth, that I’m Princess Tutu, together we might be able to stand up to Fakhir._  
      “Fakhir?”  Edel’s voice held a note of confusion, and Aria realized that again she’d spoken her thoughts aloud.  “What is Fakhir to you, Duck?”  
     Aria blinked at her, “What is he?”  Her thoughts reeled, “Well nothing I guess, not really.  But I think he’s a dangerous person to Mytho.”  
     A sound came through the woods to her left and Aria looked around startled, but there was nothing there.  When she looked back the step beside her was empty and Edel was nowhere in sight.  “What?” she asked dumbly of the empty air.  “How does she do that?”  
     Realizing she was alone in the woods, another chill crept over her skin and she jumped to her feet.  It suddenly didn’t seem safe to be out here by herself, and she hurried quickly back to the school with half an idea forming in her head.  She hated to admit it, but maybe Piqué and Lillie were onto something this morning.  Obviously she hadn’t confessed any feelings to Mytho—and even if she had feelings she _couldn’t_ confess them without turning into a speck of light—but maybe there _was_ a confession she could make.  A confession she should make.  And the sooner the better.  
     The hallways were luckily empty when she slipped into the ballet school and headed for the girl’s locker room.  She found what she needed in Piqué’s locker, she was always good about keeping things like spare pens and paper for Aria who was constantly forgetting them.  She quickly scrawled out a note and folded it up, then looked around to make sure she was alone before stripping off her clothes and stashing them in her locker.  
     With a single quack she transformed into a gangly white duckling with overlong grey legs.  Plucking up the folded letter in her beak, she trotted off through the partially open door and toward the boy’s locker room.  She peeked inside once to make sure it was empty before squeezing through the barest crack of an opening and looked around in bewilderment at the alien environment.  Luckily, just as in the girl’s room, the lockers here were labelled with nameplates and Aria trotted down the rows, holding her head up high to prevent tripping over the letter in her beak, squinting up at the nameplates to read them at her odd angle.  
     All of the nameplates were labelled last name first, which made it tricky finding Mytho's.  She passed it twice before she saw the name **_Fürst, Mytho_**  printed in bold black letters.  She'd never thought of what Mytho's last name would be and it struck her strange to think on it.  Stranger still that the first thought which popped in her mind was _that's wrong._   But she was too consumed trying to slip the note through the locker’s vented slats without falling on her backside to chase that random thought down.  So intent was she on her task that the little duck almost missed the sound of the locker room door opening and closing.  She nearly squawked in fright as a shadow fell across the floor coming toward her, except her beak was still full of letter.  In her panic she leapt up, narrowly avoiding dropping the note, and managed to get the right angle so that the letter fell neatly into Mytho’s locker.  
     With only seconds until the locker room’s occupant rounded the corner and came down her aisle, the little duck turned to the nearest partially open locker and shuttered herself inside it, huddling down into the shadows as she tried in vain to disappear altogether.  The footsteps came toward her, she saw the shadow of a pair of legs pass through the slats, and breathed a small sigh of relief.  And then the shadow fell fully on the locker and the door that hid her was suddenly jerked open.  This time she did squawk, clambering backward, when she looked up at the owner of her poorly chosen hiding spot.   
     It was Fakhir.  
     He stared down at her for a long second where she cowered, shaking, in the corner of the locker.  
     The locker room door opened again, and voices and laughter sounded as what must be the rest of the class came in to change and collect their things.  Fakhir glanced briefly toward them, pulled his uniform jacket off a hook over her head and looped it over one shoulder.  He then bent down and scooped the little grey duck up with one smooth gesture, concealing her under the fold of his jacket as he walked unhurriedly toward the door.  
     The little duck, shocked and dismayed at the dilemma, could do nothing but hunch down in the hand that held her and wonder what would happen next.  
      “Hey Fakhir!” someone called out, “Where are you going?”  
      “Nowhere,” he answered, even as he left the locker room behind.  
     Under the jacket, the little duck couldn’t see where Fakhir was taking her, but she heard another door open and close and then the jacket was pulled back and Fakhir was placing her gently in the grass at the edge of the tree line.  
      “There,” he said, smiling down at the little duck.  He took a piece of bread out of the pocket of his jacket and ripped off several chunks, tossing them down into the grass at her feet.  “You’re so stupid,” he told her amusedly, “The caretaker would have clubbed you if he found you in there.”  
     Realizing what was expected of her, the little duck leaned down and picked up one of the chunks of bread, nibbling at it.  She looked up at Fakhir, shocked to see an almost … tender expression on his face.  
      “I guess you wouldn’t have wandered in if you knew,” he murmured to her, reaching out with one long finger to stroke the top of her downy head.  
     If ducks could blush, she would have just then, and busied herself with the bread crumbs.  
     Fakhir laughed, shocking her further.  It was a surprisingly pleasant sound and the first she—and she suspected anyone—had ever heard it.  “You sure eat a lot.”  He climbed to his feet and tossed down the rest of the bread.  “Hurry home,” he told her, “don’t come around anymore.”  
     She looked up at him again as he walked away.  _Somehow he wasn’t like the usual Fakhir._   She remembered the way he’d threatened her again, and her little beak set in determination.  _No, he’s definitely a bad guy.  I’m not going to be fooled just because the bread was tasty!  He probably acted like that only because I was just a duck—  
_      Her thoughts stuttered to a stop and her eyes went wide.  _A duck._   She sighed.  _If I’m going to tell Mytho everything, I better tell him I’m just a duck too, shouldn’t I?_

***

     By the time Fakhir finished changing after rescuing the duckling from his locker—and how the little creature had ended up in there still baffled him—the others had already made their way to the school cafeteria for lunch.  He caught up to Mytho there, who was leaning a shoulder against one of the arched windows that filled the far wall, his attention engrossed by a small white note in his hand.  Fakhir’s instincts immediately went on high alert, and he honed in on the note like a bloodhound on a scent.  Feigning calm, he crossed the room to join Mytho.   
      “What’s that?” he asked lightly, snatching the note from Mytho’s hand as if only vaguely curious of its contents.  “A love letter from Rue?”  
     One of the tables of students sitting nearby stifled giggles, doing nothing to hide the fact they were eavesdropping.  
      “Aria says she has something important to tell me,” Mytho confessed, clearly not knowing it was a mistake to do so.  
     Fakhir’s fingers tightened reactively on the note, and he glared down at it.  “Is that so?” he ground out through clenched teeth.

     _Mytho,_

_There’s something important you need to know.  I will be waiting in the school’s gazebo at 5 o’clock this evening.  Come alone._

_Aria_

 

     What was the girl playing at?  Fakhir wondered.  “Did that girl not hear what I said to her?”  He handed the letter back to Mytho, barely able to keep his hand from shaking.  “You can throw it away,” he said, affecting his light tone again more for the benefit of the eavesdropping students than anything else.  “There’s no need to go.”  He started to turn away.  
      “No.”  
     Fakhir froze, astonishment and disbelief running through him in equal doses.  “What did you just say to me?”  
      “I’ve chosen to go, Fakhir,” Mytho answered with quiet determination.  
     Fakhir stared at him as if he’d just started speaking Swahili.  “You’re kidding right?”  He smiled coldly, struggling to remain calm, vividly aware that they were not alone and this was not a private conversation but rapidly losing the ability to worry about that.  “What point is there in seeing her?”  
      “Maybe there’s something she can tell me about Tutu,” Mytho whispered in a voice that traveled no farther than Fakhir.  
      “Who, Duck?” Fakhir, for his part, was unable to keep his voice down.  
      “Yes.”  
     Swallowing back the wave of rage that single word elicited, Fakhir knotted his hands into fists and counted to ten silently before trusting himself to respond.  “Think now, Mytho.  There’s no way she could know anything about that.”  
      “Bu—”  
     Fakhir took a dangerous step forward, his voice lowering into a terrible hiss, “Don’t get involved with Tutu.  Her existence will just bring you unhappiness in the end.  Don’t be fooled.  And don’t forget you have Krähe chasing after you right now.  It’s not a risk worth taking.”  
      “It is to me,” Mytho responded with uncharacteristic firmness.  
     Fakhir’s eyes went wide.  “If I tell you no, it’s no!”  He shouted, all pretense of calm falling away.  “You got that?”  
     Mytho stared back at him implacably, “No.”  
     And just like that Fakhir lost it.  All his life, all the discipline he’d trained into himself—drilled into himself—all the hard fought self-control he’d painstakingly garnered one grueling day after another fell away and left behind nothing but the raw emotion that had first driven him to such training, and he reacted with his most basic of instincts.  “That’s enough from you!” he raged, and before he’d even consciously realized what he was doing, he’d slapped Mytho across the face.   
     It wasn’t the automatic, deafening silence in the cafeteria that drove Fakhir to realize the horror of what he’d done.  It wasn’t the shocked, white faces of his classmates looking on in disbelief.  It wasn’t the sting in his palm from the force of the blow or the gentle rebuke in Mytho’s eyes.  It was the shape of his own hand outlined in red on Mytho’s cheek.  
     Fakhir had spent the better part of his life in training.  At school it was in dance which honed his body, but outside of class he’d learned to fight.  He’d trained to fight with swords, with knives, with hands and feet.  He’d sparred and dueled with fellow students of those various martial arts, but outside of that, never—not once—not even when bullies tormented him for being small, for being poor, for being an orphan and a bastard … the son of a whore, the son of a witch … not even then had he ever actually struck someone in anger.  
     Mytho straightened up, a stirring of emotion in his placid eyes.  
      “I’m sorry—” Fakhir whispered, reaching out to apologize.  
     Mytho simply brushed past him, “I am going,” he said and he walked away.  
     Fakhir was left staring at his own face reflected back at him in the window, shock percolating through his veins.  _So I’m no longer able to stop Mytho with words?_   Everything was spiraling rapidly out of control.  He turned around to be faced with the almost unanimous horror and outrage of the room but he didn’t care.  He had bigger things to worry about now, and harder choices yet to make.

 


	16. Kriegerbrunnen

**_The Warrior’s Fountain_ **

 

     It was a simple square trunk, the wood worn black with age, silver fittings tarnished to match the wood.  Faintly visible scrollwork was etched along its panels, barely discernable now.  A small notch was missing in one corner from where Fakhir had accidentally struck it while play fighting when he was eight years old.  It was his sole possession of his childhood home.  He had vague memories of it sitting near the front window of their small house, a white lace cloth laid neatly atop it while a single silver candlestick held a single perpetually burning candle.  That candle had only been blown out three times since he’d been born, once each when his father—a man he barely remembered—had returned home.  The trunk had belonged to him, that mysterious figure from Fakhir’s childhood.  It had rested at the foot of Fakhir’s bed in his room over the town smithy where he was raised until the day he started at Gold Crown Academy.  He hadn’t brought it with him to the dorms, not trusting the staff that keep the rooms to keep out of it.  He’d moved it the Antiquariat instead, and there it rested amid the dusty piles of books and memorabilia, gone but not forgotten.  
     Sitting on a short three-legged stool, elbows braced on his knees, Fakhir stared at the trunk that held the last remaining links to a family he barely recalled.  His hand still stung from where he’d struck Mytho.  He felt cold, as if frozen from the inside out, though it was warm enough in the shop.  He’d been sitting there since school had let out, too numb to reach out and open the trunk, too stubborn to leave.  For a while, the shopkeeper had left him in silence.  But now he could feel the old man throwing him looks, waiting for the decision that would be made.  Fakhir knew the stakes.  He knew that if he opened that trunk now there was no going back.  He knew that if he did he ran the risk of a seed of darkness being planted in his soul and if he didn’t, a greater evil would be opened upon the world.  He knew all of this, and still he could not move.  
      “Ahem!” the old shopkeeper cleared his throat.  
     Fakhir flinched at the sound, curling his hands into fists.  He threw one sidelong glance at the old man, who was sitting in the only pool of light at his desk with a book in his hands.  
      “Long ago,” the old man read aloud as if reading to himself, “there was a knight.  In order to protect his friend the knight had to take his friend’s life.  Long ago there was a sword.  This sword had continued to fight for peace, yet realized that to protect the peace it had no choice but to kill the one who wielded it…”  
      “…and thus took its master’s life,” Fakhir quoted from memory.  “I’ve read that story too.”  
      “Then what are you waiting for?” the old man asked.  
     Fakhir shot him a dark look.  “Do you think betrayal comes so easily to me?”  
      “Is it really betrayal to honor the Prince’s last wishes?”  
      “He isn’t dead,” Fakhir growled.  
      “No, but he is as near to it as any man can come.”  
     Fakhir’s teeth ground together.   
      “This is what you were made for,” the old man urged him.  “This is why we chose you.”  
      “You chose me because I’m the only other person in this whole forsaken town who knows the truth,” he shot back.  
     Silence answered him for the span of several heartbeats.  “That may have been a consideration.”  
     Sighing, Fakhir bowed his head.  
      “The Prince’s heart cannot be restored.”  
      “I know that!” Fakhir snapped.  
     More silence.  
      “…so what are you going to do?”  
     What was there to do?  Reaching out, Fakhir flipped the trunk open.  There were only a few things inside.  A simple white lace cloth, folded neatly.  A single silver candlestick.  A half-burned candle.  A crimson cloak.  A pair of black leather riding gloves.  And a set of elaborate swan-necked, gilt-edged spurs.  Fakhir reached for the spurs and picked them up, turning them over in his hand.  They were masterfully crafted, made to look like the namesake of their design, the gilded rowels crafted like rays of light haloing the swans’ heads.  They were beautiful.  Heirlooms left over from a bygone age of knights and ladies and chivalric codes.  
      “It’s time, Fakhir.”  The old man had stepped up to his shoulder while he was engrossed examining the spurs.  “This is what you’ve been training for.”  
     The taste of bile stained his mouth, “Is it?” he asked bitterly.  He closed a fist around the knight’s spurs.  “I’m not so sure.”  
     The old man gently laid a gnarled hand upon his shoulder, “I am.”  
     Cold steel wrapped itself around Fakhir’s heart with those words.  “Right then,” he said and stood, dropping the spurs back in the box.  He withdrew the crimson cape, finding in a hidden pocket the ancient brass key which held an awful future in its promise.  The key lay in his hand heavy and forbidding.  
     The old man stared at him, his eyes unreadable.   
     Fakhir made to fold the cape back up but stopped, staring at the rich, soft fabric in his hands.  Instead of folding it back into the box, he shrugged out of his blue jacket, slung the blazer over the stool, and swirled his father’s cape around his own shoulders.  There was once a time in his life when he never thought he’d grow tall enough to wear it, but now it fit perfectly.  Bending again, he retrieved the black gloves.  
      “It’s time,” the old man spoke prophetically.  “This story needs its knight.”

***

     _Whispers everywhere.  The young boy moved woodenly through the crowd, too small to be noticed by anyone as he cut through the various mourners, each there grieving their own loved ones.  Too many caskets, too many bodies.  The toddler couldn’t count them all.  Too many caskets for the numbers he had learned.  And one of them … one of them held_ her.  
     _“Mutti,” he murmured, placing one small chubby hand on the side of a plain pine box.  
_       “Did you know her?” _a woman whispered.  
_       “Not at all, she made tinctures for my husband when he was down with cholera.  They say she could even cure the Spanish flu.”  
      “It was strange she lived all alone in the woods.”  
      “Everyone says she was a witch.”  
      “Oh my goodness, is that boy hers?”  
      “Was she even married?”  
      “Likely some poor bastard child who doesn’t know his own father’s name.”  
     _Tears filled the boy’s eyes and he hurried away, small enough to cut through the crowd, stumbling between legs and feet as he ran away from the stink of death and the awful words.  He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, down twisting tunnels past more caskets and more bodies.  And one of them, he knew, held his father too.  
_      _He kept running, tears blinding him as he tore through the dark, twisting tunnels of the catacombs.  He crashed into a door and was knocked onto his backside, the breath torn from his body at the collision.  For a minute he lay gasping on the ground, and then he got up.  Desperately he tore at the door handle, trying and failing to push the heavy iron door open.  
_      _“Boy!”  
_      _He looked up, shocked by the strong voice that called out to him.  
_      _“What are you doing here alone?”  The man who had spoken stepped out of the shadows.  His face was worn with grief, his clothes still torn and stained as if he’d been wearing them during the attack and hadn’t changed since that awful day.  There was a sword in the man’s hand.  A sword the toddler recognized.  
_      _It was his father’s sword.  
_      _“I—I—” he faltered, staring at the sword.  
_      _As if realizing he held it, the man looked down at his own hand and the harsh planes of his face relaxed.  “Don’t worry boy,” he soothed the child, “I won’t hurt you.”  
_      _“Where did you get that?” the boy asked, soft eyes still fixed on the sword as he sniffled and rubbed tears from his cheeks with his dirty sleeve.  
_      _“It belonged to my friend,” the man said, kneeling in front of him.  “What are you doing down here?”  
_      _He stared at the stone floor numbly.  “They’re burying my Mutti,” he whimpered, chin trembling as he struggled to hold back more tears.  
_      _The man nodded knowingly, an inexpressible sorrow in his eyes.  “They’re burying my friend too,” he said.  “Is that why you’re running away?”  
_      _Wordlessly, the toddler nodded, tears dripping from his chin onto his tattered tunic.  
_      _“I know how you feel,” the man murmured, his tone gentle.  “You can’t go this way though.  That’s another crypt there.  Godfrey’s crypt.  No one’s entered that room for hundreds of years.”  
_      _The boy looked at the heavy door again and shivered.  
_      _“My name is Kyron,” the man said, holding out his free hand.  “What’s your name?”  
_      _The boy hesitated.  “Lo—lo” he struggled, not remembering how to piece the syllables together.  “F-Fakhir,” he said at last, falling back on the name the old bookmen had given him days ago after the attack.  
_      _Kyron smiled, “Hello Fakhir.”_

***

     Fakhir stood alone in the street outside St. Godfrey’s staring up at the bell tower outlined against a storm-darkened sky.  There was no one about.  The last echoes of the bell calling the faithful to evening Mass had died away, and the soft intonation of the opening prayers could be heard from inside.  But he hadn’t come for Mass.  And he hadn’t come to pray.  Instead he turned toward the abbey which he knew would be empty of occupants now—and would stay so until the final dismissal—giving him just enough time to do what he came to do.  
     The inside of the abbey was plain of all decoration, as befitting the simple lives of the sisters and brothers who lived there.  A long stone corridor greeted him, branching off into separate cells on each side, lit at intervals with flickering candles in plain sconces which lent the place an eerie, medieval air.  His shoes clacked softly on the stone floor as he made his way toward the catacombs.  
     He paused at one door and looked in, surprised to find the room beyond was not plain like the others.  The walls had been painted from floor to ceiling with a masterful depiction of a dark forest.  A long table filled the center of the room, with bowls laid out at every place and loaves of plain brown bread set intermittently along its length doubtlessly awaiting the residents for their evening meal.  He turned away and resumed his course toward the catacombs.  
      “This is a strange place to break into,” a quiet voice echoed behind him.  Fakhir spun quickly, spotting the newcomer with ease.  She was dressed head to toe in layers of fabric.  A black gown covered her from the chin to the floor, long purple gloves chased up her arms, and a matching purple scarf was fastened around her head and face so that not one inch of skin was visible.  Not even her eyes could be seen.  “You will find nothing of value here,” she went on, moving into the hallway through the door to the forest room.  
     Fakhir swallowed back the rising taste of fear.  There was something strangely unnerving about the faceless woman.  “I didn’t come here to rob the sisters,” he answered her.  
      “I should hope not,” she murmured back.  “It would be a sad soul indeed who would steal from poor pilgrims who gave up everything to follow God.”   
      “Who are you?” he blurted out.  “You’re not one of the sisters.”  
     She tilted her head on one side.  “No, I am not.  I am but a poor widow seeking sanctuary here.”  She took a step closer, “And what about you?  What do you come here for if not to steal?”  
      “I’m here for Godfrey’s sword.”  
     Though he could not read her expression, he could see she was surprised.  “This order is bound to protect that sword.  What makes you think they would release it to you?”  
      “Nothing,” he answered simply, “That’s why I’m not asking for it.”  
      “So you _are_ here to steal?” there was a smile in her reply.  
     Taken aback, he gaped at her.  
      “Do not worry, I shall not attempt to stop you.”  She gazed at him, obviously assessing his capabilities.  “I do not think I could if I tried.  But tell me, what does a young man such as yourself need with such a thing as Godfrey’s sword?”  
     He fidgeted uncomfortably.  “I need it to stop something.”  
      “To stop what?”  
      “Something awful.”  
      “Such as what?”  
      “Such as evil.”  
      “And this thing would be…?” she pressed.  
     What could he say that she would believe?  If he told her the truth she would laugh, or have him arrested.  Or both.  But could he give her an acceptable lie?  “Saving the lives of all Goldkrone Towne, maybe more.  Maybe the world.”  The words blurted out before he could think to stop them.  
     She cocked her head again.  With sinuous movements she walked right up to him and reached out one silk-gloved hand.  Her fingers brushed against his cheek and he jerked away.  Though her eyes were invisible behind the purple scarf, he could feel them burning into him.  “So you’ve finally come,” she whispered.  “What a handsome young man you are.”  
     Fakhir really didn’t know what to do with that.  
      “I suppose if you insist on this quest of yours, I have no choice but to step aside.”  She turned, her invisible face somehow even more imposing in profile.  “Though I wonder if you even know the way.”  
     He froze at that.  He knew the sword was in the catacombs, interred there after the attack that killed nearly a quarter of Goldkrone’s people.  They thought a thief had stolen the ancient relic and returned it to its _rightful_ resting place.  They didn’t know the sword belonged to a fairytale Prince.  All this he knew, but what Fakhir remembered of the catacombs from when his mother and father were interred, was a winding, weaving maze of tunnels whose pattern could not be easily discerned.  And he didn’t really have all that long until Mass let out…  “I—”  
     She paused in her retreat and turned back to him, “I might be persuaded to lead you there, young thief.  For a price.”  
     He swallowed hard.  “I don’t have any money.”  
      “I do not seek money,” she answered him, her arms spread at her sides.  “As you can see, I have no need of money here.”  
      “What do you want then?”  
     He could almost sense her smile.  
      “Your name, for now.”  
     Taken aback, he stared at her agape.  “My name?”  
      “Your name,” she smilingly repeated.  
      “To turn me in after I’ve gone?” he demanded suspiciously.  
     Suddenly solemn, she held up her right hand, her left over her heart.  “I swear I shall not utter one word of your presence here to any living soul, should you choose to pay my price.”  
     He equivocated, trying to discern her motive and integrity.  From beyond the arched doors leading into the nave the sound of the choir singing _Sanctus, Sanctus_ echoed out and he realized he was losing time.  “Fakhir,” he said.  “My name’s Fakhir.  Fakhir Suziere.”  
     She stood still for a long moment before nodding once.  She turned, striding quickly away through the forest room and he had to hurry to catch up.  Down she led him, through another two corridors that wound through darkness, and then descending a spiral stair that twisted into an inky depth lit only randomly by sputtering torches.  They came at last to the bottom and a great iron door.  She stood to one side and gestured toward it, “You will have to enter alone,” she said.  “All but the Bishop are sworn not to disturb this holy place, though I suppose a thief cares not for such oaths.”  
     Grinding his teeth in a mix of frustration and determination, he stepped past her and inserted the heavy brass key that he carried into the lock, turning it with some effort before he put his shoulder to the iron door.  It gave unwillingly, groaning with protest and a shower of rust as it scraped across the stone floor.  Beyond was a room in shadow, two crypts enshrined at its center.  He glanced over his shoulder at the strange woman.  “Which one is it?”  
     She shrugged as if she did not know.  
     Sighing unhappily, Fakhir stepped into the room and gazed at the crypts.  The two were identical and he had the strange, prickling feeling that this was somehow a test.  Choose the wrong crypt and there might be dire consequences.  He looked up again at the woman as if she’d give him some kind of hint, but she just stood there in the doorway like some kind of strange shadow shrouded in all her dark clothes.  
     Picking at random, Fakhir stepped to the far crypt and pushed back the lid.  Inside there lay an ancient sword, rusted from time and pitted with use.  Its hilt was the curving neck of two swans, its blade was broad and doubtlessly once was sharp.  Fakhir lifted it up, expecting it to be heavy, but it was strangely and surprisingly light.   
      “So this is Godfrey’s sword,” he breathed.  
      “The sword of a King.”  
     Fakhir started and swung around.  
     The strange woman had come silently into the room to stand at his shoulder.  She caught the blade in one gloved hand as it accidentally swung toward her face.  Her grip was like iron, implacable, and without any effort at all she stilled the blade and held it imprisoned with one silk glove.  
      “You’re not just some poor widow taking sanctuary,” Fakhir realized darkly.  
      “You did not think the sword would be unprotected, did you?” she asked.  
      “You’re its guardian.”  
     She inclined her head and gave the minutest of curtsies without releasing the blade.  “I am Cundrie,” she told him, “as you guess, Guardian of Godfrey’s Blade.  Tell me thief, for what purpose will you wield this sword?”  
     Muscles straining against her impossibly strong grip, Fakhir answered in a growl.  “I already told you.  To save Goldkrone Towne.”  
      “How?” she demanded flatly.  
     He stopped fighting her, realizing it was futile.  “By shattering again the heart of a Prince who shattered his heart to seal away an evil Raven.”  
      “A Prince?” she sounded amused.  “Who is this Prince to you?”  
     Fakhir clenched his jaw.  “He is my friend.”  
      “And your friend wishes to shatter his heart to keep this evil at bay?”  
      “Yes,” he spat, and then he cringed.  _Except that isn’t true, is it?  Mytho wants Tutu to restore his heart now._ “No.”  
     Satisfaction seemed to emanate from Cundrie.  “And you would do this to your friend to save the town?  Or to save yourself?”  
     He flinched back from her, “What do you mean by that?”  
     She shrugged, “You make your mission sound honorable but you begin it with thieving and end it with betrayal.  What honor is there in that?”  
     He jerked back as if she’d slapped him, his hands dropping from the sword’s hilt.  Cundrie shifted her grip, reaching for the hilt of the sword with one hand and tilting it toward him so that its tip rested at his throat.  “You don’t understand…” he faltered.  
      “So there _is_ honor in this thing you seek to do?” Cundrie laughed, and the sound was unpleasant, like a snarl and a hiss.  “Believe me, young thief, if there is one thing I do understand it is betrayal.”  
     He had nothing to say to that.  “Will you give me the sword?” he asked at last, anger in his words.  
      “Yes,” she answered after a moment’s consideration.  “But only on one condition.”  
      “And what is that?”  
      “If you can restore this sword to its greatness, you may take it from its place.”  
     Fakhir stared at the rusted, pitted sword, and smiled.  “That I can do.”

***

     _“Mutti, Mutti!”  The little toddler ran up to his mother’s side and closed a tiny fist into her skirts.  “Can I light the candle this time Mutti?”  
_      _“Of course, my love,” she whispered softly.  She leaned down to place the long taper, already burning, in his tiny fist and guided it gently toward the new white candle in its lone silver candlestick.  “For guidance,” she murmured, “For forbearance…”  
_      _“For safe-keeping,” the toddler repeated after her, “and for love, to bring home him who wanders afar.”  
_      _“That’s right, my little one,” she cooed.  And then suddenly she stiffened, the now-extinguished taper falling from her hand.  She clutched his shoulder and turned him away from the window, hurrying him out of view.  “Quickly in here,” she spoke, her voice filled with fear.  
_      _“What’s wrong Mutti?” he asked, suddenly sharing that fear.  
_      _She dropped to her knees in front of him and smoothed his unruly dark hair back from his face.  “Nothing is wrong, my little one,” she crooned.  “We’re going to play a game.  You stay in here and hide and count to a hundred, and when you hear the allez, allez in kommen frei you come out and find the present I’ve hidden for you.”  
_      _“Okay Mutti,” the little boy covered his eyes and began to count, struggling with the numbers he’d worked so hard to learn.        The closet door closed on him, leaving him in the dark, and beyond his little world he could hear the soft sound of his mother’s footsteps as she walked across the bare wooden floor of their little house.  Then there was the sound of something like a knock and a door opening, and he stopped counting.  The little boy shuffled forward toward a sliver of light shining through the cracks around the door.  He could catch the barest glimpse of his mother’s skirts, and beyond her someone—a man he thought—standing in front of her.  They seemed to be arguing about something, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.  
_      _His mother’s skirts swished as if she’d turned away, and he saw the man reach out and grab her by the arm.  She cried out, and there was a loud clap.  The little boy stared in horror as his mother fell to the floor clutching the side of her face.  
_      _“I said no!” she cried out.  “I won’t do it!  I can’t!”  
_      _Fine,” the stranger growled, turning away.  “Then I shall have to use your sister instead.”  
_      _His mother went suddenly pale and reached out, clutching at the hem of the man’s coat, “No—” her lip trembled and she looked as if she wanted to cry.  “Don’t please.  Don’t do this to her.”  
_      _The stranger shook her off, “Useless witch,” he growled.  “If you won’t give me what I need then I’ll take it from her.”  
_      _A tear fell down her face and she reached out both hands as if asking for help up.  “Alright,” she said softly, “I’ll give it to you.”  
_      _What happened next he didn’t know.  There was a flash of light and he started to feel fuzzy and then he was waking up on the closet floor and everything was dark and he didn’t know what time it was.  Frightened and curious, the little boy cracked the door open and peered around it.  
_      _His mother was sitting on the floor in a pool of skirts, her arms folded on a chair, with her head and shoulders resting on her folded arms.  She looked cold and white in the pale moonlight filtering in through the window.  The fire had long gone out, and the candle they’d lit had burned down, dripping wax on the clean white linen tablecloth.  
_      _“Mutti?” he asked uncertainly.  
_      _Her head came up and she gazed at him as if waking from a dream.  Then she reached out and he went to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and curling up beside her.  
_      _“Shh, little one,” she sang, “everything is alright now.”  
_      _“What happened Mutti?”  
_      _“Nothing happened, my love,” she soothed, stroking his hair.  “Nothing at all.”  
_      _“Why did the bad man hurt you?” he asked.  
_      _She started at that, and turned his face up to look him in the eye.  “What did you say?”  
_      _“Why did the bad man hurt you?” he was close to tears.  
_      _Her pale face looked stricken.  And then suddenly she was on her feet and she had moved the candle and torn back the wax-stained cloth to reveal the chest underneath.  She opened it and pulled something out, hastily returning the cloth and candle, and coming back to sit on the floor in front of him.  “Do you know what this is?” she asked, holding the object in both of her hands.  
_      _He looked at it, “It’s a key.”  
_      _“That’s right, my love.”  She smiled, and there was something brittle and fragile in that smile.  “I want you to take this key and I want you to remember.  This is very important, you have to remember.”  
_      _“Remember what?”  
_      _“These words, little one, these words exactly.  Now repeat after me …_ _Das Schwert, das das Herz des Prinzen…”_

_***_

     The priest was just beginning to distribute communion as Fakhir led Cundrie out of the catacombs.  She was silent as she shadowed his footsteps carrying Godfrey’s sword.  Whatever thoughts she may have had were entirely hidden behind her veils.  Out of the abbey he led her, into the empty street to the kriegerbrunnen, the tall fountain topped with an eagle dedicated to soldiers fallen in war.  
      “The sword,” he said, holding out his hand expectantly.  
     Silently, Cundrie passed over the blade.  
     He accepted it easily, surprised to find that its weight had increased exponentially on being borne out of the church.  He threw a look at the strange woman, and although he could not see her smile, he could sense it.  
      “I am not its only Guardian,” she answered his unspoken question.  
     Muscles straining against the sword, which must now weigh an unwieldy ten kilos, he held the broad blade up in his right hand at the level of his eyes, its tip angling past his left shoulder.  Words long ago memorized, words whose meaning he did not then understand, tumbled off his tongue with the ease of long recitation.  “Das Schwert, das das Herz des Prinzen zerbrochen…”  
     As he incanted the spell, he slowly drew the length of the rusty blade over his left hand, lining its edge with his blood.  One, two, three drops of blood into the clear water of the fountain and suddenly it ran red as if he’d drained three grown men of every ounce.  
      “…und auch noch einen bösen groβen Rabe zurückgerichtet hat…”  
     They had whispered at his mother’s funeral, rumors of the strange woman who lived alone in the woods who could make tinctures to cure cholera, and practiced strange magic by night.  The other children had bullied him for being a bastard, for being an orphan, for being the son of a witch.  And each night he’d curled up in bed, clutching the heavy brass key and repeating over and again those words that she had taught him, and the steps of a spell as ancient as the sword he held.  
     The holy strains of _Ave Maria_ echoed from St. Godfrey’s behind them as Fakhir lowered the sword into the water, imbruing its blade black as the night.  He lifted it before him in salute, shouting the final words of the spell, “…erteilt ihm wieder Kraft!”  
     The inky blackness coating the sword shattered like so many shards of glass and shadow, and the sword that had been left forgotten, old and rusted in a crypt, was suddenly shining and new.  Whatever spectral chains had weighed it down were gone, and it lay lightly in his hand, sharp and ready for battle.  
      “You are an impressive young thief,” Cundrie said at his shoulder.  
     He glanced sideways at her, suddenly irritated at her presence.  “We made a deal,” he growled.  “The sword is mine to take.”  
      “And so it is,” she answered him simply.  “Though I wonder if you fully comprehend the consequences of the course you’ve chosen here tonight.”  
      “What do you know of consequences?” he snarled.  “Do _you_ understand what will happen if the Prince’s heart is fully restored?”  
     She cocked her head to one side.  “Do you know what will happen to _you_ if you succeed in betraying him?”  
     Fakhir sneered at her and started away, “I don’t need to hear your lectures.”  
      “Then at least take this,” she called out after him.  
     He turned back and saw she held out an iron mask.  
      “What would I need that for?” he scoffed.  
      “It is a gift,” she told him with a simple shrug.  
     Fakhir took it from her and stared at its blank eyes, “What use is this?”  
     Her voice was low and ominous as she replied.  “It is to hide your face, so that God will not know it is you when you betray your friend.”

***

     Aria sat nervously on the steps of the gazebo after school, her foot tapping anxiously as she waited.  She wondered if Mytho had gotten her note.  She wondered if he would come at all.  She wondered if she’d even have the nerve to tell him the truth, that she was Princess Tutu … and a duck.  Somewhere beyond her little wooded glade the church tower tolled the five o’clock hour.  “This is it,” she breathed, climbing to her feet and peering down the shaded path.  
     The crunch of shoes on leaves echoed up the trail, and then Mytho rounded a verdant corner and stepped into the clearing.  
      “Mytho,” Aria breathed, shocked that he’d actually shown up.  
      “Aria,” he greeted her solemnly.  “There was something you wanted to tell me?”  
     She blushed furiously and stared at her feet, stammering.  “I am, uh, actually … I’m uh—” she tried and failed to form the words.  “Tu—tu—tu—tu—”  
      “Tutu?” he asked.  
     She stared up at him with surprised, luminous eyes.  “What?” she gasped.  “You knew all along?”  
      “You know about Tutu, don’t you Aria?” he asked, a hint of desperation in his voice.  
     Aria’s heart skipped a beat as she realized he didn’t know, and he didn’t understand what she was trying to say.  
      “Fakhir told me that I shouldn’t come here but—”  
     She blanched, “You told Fakhir about this?”  
      “Yes.”  
     The taste of bile burned her tongue.  _Right, everything I tell Mytho goes straight to Fakhir too._    
      “Aria—”  
      “Yes?”  
      “I—I want to see Tutu.”  
     Her eyes went wide.  “You do?”  
      “Whenever I think of Tutu I become filled with the desire to see her.” He stepped toward her earnestly.  
      “Mytho…” she breathed.  
      “I want to be with Tutu always.”  
     And in that moment Aria wished for nothing else in the whole world than to grant his request.  
     A sudden, sharp, cold wind blew into the clearing and swirled around them kicking up leaves of last year’s trees.  It spun around the clearing and Aria threw up her hands to protect her face from the flying debris.  A dark shape swirled out of the whirlwind, terrible and familiar.  Pale arms snaked out and grasped Aria by the shoulders, throwing her mercilessly to the ground.  Aria rolled twice and looked up to see Krähe standing in her place before the Prince.   
      “My Prince,” the strange dark rival breathed in her sultry voice, “You belong to me.”  
     Mytho drew in a sharp breath.  The entire thing had happened in less than a second, and he stared wide-eyed at the raven-haired witch before him.  
      “Krähe!” Aria shouted out.  In one smooth move she grasped her pendant tightly and rose to her feet, transforming into Tutu.  
     Mytho, mesmerized as one hypnotized by the evocative eyes that held his own, failed to see the girl transform into the princess.  Krähe reached out, stroking his hair, his face, his chest.  “Your hair,” she murmured huskily, “your cheeks, even your heart … It all belongs to me.”  
      “Let him go, Krähe!” Tutu cried out, stepping forward ready to dance or fight.  
     A flicker of irritation rippled across Krähe’s heavily made-up face.  “Princess Tutu,” she rolled the words in her mouth as if some vile oath.  “You can prance off now dear, I can take it from here.”  
     Rage boiled up inside of Tutu, and she balled up fists at her sides.  “Please,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “Return the heart shard you took.”  The words were less a request than a demand, and she held out her hand expectantly.  “Stop making the Prince suffer.”  
      “Tutu,” Mytho breathed.  
     But Rue was unaffected by her show of strength.  She threw back her perfectly coiffed head and laughed.  “I’m trembling,” she mocked.  Smugly she took the Prince’s hand and wrapped his arm around her waist.  “Look my Prince,” she purred,” pirouetting around to hang her arms around his neck.  “There’s the one who’s making you suffer.  “Princess Tutu!”  
      “What?” he asked, face blank.  
      “No!” Tutu cried out, descending from the gazebo like some strange avenging angel.  “No that’s a lie!”  
      “My poor Prince,” Krähe gloated, taking his hand in hers.  “I’m the one you need.  I’m the only one you need.  I will always be with you.”  As she spoke she danced with him, sinuous and dangerously alluring.  
     Mytho, still strangely hypnotized by her redolent eyes, stepped woodenly into the movements of her strange dance.  “Krähe…” he whispered the word on a breath.  
      “You are like a doll,” she gloated, “but I will love you.  I will make you forget Tutu.  We shall just give this heart thing to the crows,” she said.  She tossed one hand away from herself negligently, holding out the shining, stolen jewel of Mytho’s heart.  From the trees a flock of angry crows descended toward that shining jewel, red eyes gleaming and sharp beaks ready to pluck up and rend apart that most precious shard.  
      “No!” Tutu wailed, leaping suddenly into action.  She collided with Krähe, knocking the dark seductress away from Mytho, and casting her aside with one vicious grand pirouette a la seconde.  Krähe, still clutching the jewel in one clawed hand, landed in fourth several paces away, crouched and snarling like an animal ready to spring.  
      “Release the Prince’s heart!” Tutu cried out challengingly, prepared for attack.  
     But before Krähe could move, another figure suddenly swept into the clearing.  Cutting right between the two battling girls, it grabbed Mytho and dragged him away, turning to face them both with an upheld sword.  Tutu stared at the newcomer in shock, clearly a man, but he wore a mask.  “Who are you?” she demanded.  
      “That is the Prince’s sword,” Krähe swore.  
      “So, you’re Krähe?” the masked man sized her up, dismissing Tutu at once.  
      “How dare you address me you filth!” Krähe swore, leaping toward him.  
      “Are you the Raven manifest?” he demanded, charging to meet her whipping attack.  They struck each other, she across his face with one out-flung arm, he a glancing blow that sliced across her hip.  She jerked away from the sword’s sharp edge, and the glowing heart shard flew from her hand to land meters away in the tall green grass at the forest’s edge.  
     Krähe’s eyes went wide with shock and pain, and between one heartbeat and the next, she disappeared in a tornado of feathers and darkness.  
      “The shard!” Tutu cried out, watching it fall glittering amidst the shadows.  
      “It’s no use,” the masked man told her, standing between her and the heart shard now.  “Princess Tutu,” he spat her name like a curse.  
      “Who are you?” she breathed.  The mask he wore cracked suddenly, damaged in the attack by Krähe, and it fell away.  Tutu swallowed back her rising fear as she recognized the face behind that mask.  “Fakhir!”  
     Ignoring her, he tossed the broken mask to the ground and strode over to the Prince.  “I’m sorry that you had to wait so long, Mytho.  It’s all right now.  You won’t have to suffer.”  
      “What are you doing?” she asked in horror.  
      “Sit down,” Fakhir instructed, taking Mytho by the shoulders and pushing him to the steps of the gazebo.  “I’ll set things right.”  He sounded almost soothing.  “I will shatter your heart for you once again.”  
     Tutu’s heart twisted, “What!?”  
      “And you will not stop me Princess Tutu!” he shouted, lifting the sword in his hands.  
     “Mytho!” Tutu cried out.  
     A white light exploded behind her eyes.  She wasn’t standing in the clearing.  She was inside a room, a great cavernous room and the floor was littered with black feathers and lumpy forms.  A masked figure stood before Mytho with a sword in its hands.  _“Mytho!”_ she cried out, leaping into the room.  
     She leapt now, landing between Mytho and the descending sword even as pain and light exploded behind her eyes.  She caught the sword’s sharp tip on the blade of a fan and Fakhir pressed the attack.  “You Fakhir,” she hissed.  “You’re the one who shattered Mytho’s heart?  Why did you do such a terrible thing?”  
     A dark look flared in his eyes and Fakhir backed away, regrouping and raising his sword.  “If you hadn’t shown up then none of this would have happened.”  
     Tutu faced him firmly, determined to do whatever she had to do to keep him away from Mytho, even if that meant dying.  He leapt at her suddenly, swinging the sword down as she slashed it aside with her fan.  
      “Fakhir stop it!” Mytho cried out, even as the sword went clattering to the stone path.  Tutu and Fakhir both stared at the sword but it was Mytho who picked it up.  “Is it my fault?” Mytho asked, rising to his feet with the sword in his hand.  “If I pierce my heart with this sword, will that satisfy you Fakhir?”  
      “That’s right,” Fakhir urged him.  “Then you’ll return to your old self and all will be as it was.”  
      “Alright,” Mytho sighed sadly.  
      “What?” Tutu whispered, unable to believe her own ears.  
     Mytho took a knee, bracing the sword against the ground and placing the tip of it against his heart.   
      “Mytho!” she cried out, “Don’t do it!  Would you rather be without a heart?”  
      “Do it quickly!”  Fakhir shouted over her, “Don’t listen to her, just pierce your heart!”  
      “Mytho, please no!” she pleaded, running toward him.  Fakhir caught her arms, pinning them behind her back and she fell.  He held her fast as she knelt staring up at Mytho about to shatter his heart.   
      “Do it now!” Fakhir commanded.  
     Fear caught in her throat, she wanted to look away but she couldn’t.  She wanted to close her eyes but they wouldn’t shut.  She could only watch, desperately, hopelessly, _pinned to the floor by pain blooming like a flower in her chest…  
_      White light exploded in her head, a roaring rushing cacophony of sound drowned out even the echo of her own scream bleeding into her brain.   
     _Blood and air warring together…  
_      _A cold hand reaching out.  
_      _“Mytho no…” words never heard.  
_      Fakhir’s hands loosened as if shocked by the awful sound of the scream which ripped from her lungs, but Tutu wasn’t fighting him now.  She hung limply in his grip, tears of sharpest agony streaming from her eyes as she gasped against the images that not even the hot-white light could burn away now.  
     _“For you, my heart.”  
_      _A sword pierced, a flash of light—  
_      _“What once was mine now yours…”  
_      _Hope like light now gone.  
_      _Darkness…  
_       “NO!” Tutu screamed at the top of her lungs, screamed against her captor, screamed against the sword at Mytho’s heart, screamed against the pain that ripped through her head with that flash of light.  “The other day you smiled!” she screamed.  “Just a little, remember?  Just a flash of the person you were when you were _whole_.  That’s all I ever wanted to do:  restore your heart so that you can _be_ that person—the real you.  The you who can _feel,_ who can smile and laugh and love!”  
     Mytho paused, staring up at the girl Fakhir held as she crumpled in his hands, weeping.   
      “I’m sorry,” she mourned.  “I can’t save or protect you from the suffering, because all I can do is restore your heart to you, and with that comes suffering ... and I hope … joy.”

***

     He hadn’t expected her to be like this.  _Princess Tutu_.  In his mind he’d pictured that speck of light, that glowing minute faery with its wings and golden skin that looked barely human.  In his head he’d demonized her as this _thing_ , threatening the delicate balance that held Goldkrone Towne in safety.  He’d imagined her as some mischievous sprite bent on destroying the Prince.  But she wasn’t anything like that.  She was real, and human, and driven by something stronger than he’d suspected.  She almost seemed to _care.  
_      He stared at her bowed head, so shocked by her confession and raw emotion, he even forgot that he was holding her arms twisted behind her back.  Mytho, too, was staring at the girl wide-eyed and awed.  And then, resolutely, Mytho dropped the sword.  
     It landed with a definite clatter upon the stone steps of the gazebo.  A choice made.  A decision determined.  Princess Tutu’s head swung up.  “Mytho?” she gasped.  
     Swallowing back the taste of bile, Fakhir released the girl and stepped away.  “I see,” he muttered.  But he didn’t.  He didn’t see what this girl was to Mytho.  What motivation drove her?  Why did she _care_ so much?  His eyes met Mytho’s.  “So this is the answer you have chosen.”   
     Cundrie’s words echoed unwelcome in his mind, _“…I wonder if you fully comprehend the consequences of the course you’ve chosen here tonight…”  
_      He faltered, retreating another step, and then turned.  His father’s cloak swirled about his shoulders and for some awful reason he could not quite discern, he felt suddenly unequal to wearing it.  Fakhir strode away, stopping only once at the edge of the trees where the two halves of Cundrie’s shattered mask lay in the grass.  _So that God will not know it is me when I betray my friend._   “But he knows now doesn’t he?” Fakhir muttered to himself, retreating back into the shadow of the trees and the darkness of his own thoughts.

***

     Mytho’s eyes remained fixed on Fakhir’s retreating form until the last swish of his cape had disappeared in the darkness.  Only then did he turn to Tutu.  She was gazing at him with a look he could not decipher, frozen where she stood.  “Tutu,” he spoke her name softly, “restore this heart shard to me.”  
     Seeming to snap back to herself, she glanced in the direction the heart shard had landed, and held out her hands to it.  The shining jewel in the form of light rose out of the grass and flew to her cupped palms, and then she extended her fingers, releasing the shard to its rightful owner.  
     Mytho pressed his hand against his chest as the shard returned, almost eager this time to know what visions it would bring.  The familiar pain was sweet, for with it was brought memory.  
     _“Wait my friend, you must know…”  
_      _A sword, a truth, an unbearable lie…  
_      _“How can we stop him?”  
_      _“With this.”  
_      _“But sire!?”  
_      _The girl, his heart…  
_      _“She must not know.”  
_      His eyes fluttered open and he looked up at Princess Tutu, still standing luminous and beautiful in the pale evening light.  Mytho walked right up to her and took her small, shaking hand in his own.  “I want to know,” he whispered, lifting her hand to place a chaste kiss upon it.  A pretty pink blush stained her cheeks in response to his touch.  “What do you think of me?”  He gazed into those shimmering blue eyes more captivating than Krähe’s hypnotic looks and held his breath.  _I want to know.  
_      All the blood drained out of her face, and the look in her eyes now he understood, though he did not comprehend why it should be reflected there.  _Fear.  
_      She pulled her hand away from his then, took two tiny steps backwards, and before he could take a breath to call her name, or reach out to her again, she fled from him leaving Mytho standing in the clearing all alone.  Again.

 


	17. Die schwarze Wolke

**_The Black Cloud_ **

     Fakhir didn’t return to the dorms.  He didn’t have the stomach to face Mytho.  He couldn’t go back to the Antiquariat either.  Not yet.  Not until he’d figured out what he was going to say.  _And what is that?_   He wondered.  What could he possible say except.  _I failed._   He’d failed to shatter the Prince’s heart.  He’d failed to stop Tutu.  He’d even lost the damn sword.  He’d failed in absolutely everything he’d set out to do, everything he’d trained to do.  How could he go back to the Antiquariat and tell the shopkeeper who’d spent the better part of fifteen years dedicated to Fakhir’s training that after all of that investment, their chosen champion had failed… because of _her?  
_      _Princess Tutu.  
_      The taste of her name on his tongue was bitter.  His hands burned where he’d held her arms.  The sound of her scream shattered in his head.  She was the enemy, and yet—in the crucial moment—he had let her go.  He’d let her return _another_ shard to Mytho.  And why?   
     _Why?  
_      He didn’t know.  
     Almost unconsciously his feet led him back to the church.  It was dark and empty, lit only by the soft glow of votive candles, and the statues and stained glass windows glared down at him accusingly.  He strode up the central aisle toward the altar, dressed in the shadows that played across the nave.  When he stood at the line where the pews ended and the chancel began he stopped, staring up at the empty block of the altar.   
      “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he spoke to that empty altar.   
     If Mytho regained his heart, then the seal holding back the Raven would be broken…  
      “I tried to pierce Mytho’s heart on the grounds that doing so would be in Mytho’s best interest.”  _But it wasn’t._ “Since Mytho himself wishes to regain his heart…  What can I do now that nothing I do can deter him?”  He looked up at the altar again as if it would issue an answer to him.  _Was I wrong?_   “Is there anything at all that remains for me other than accepting fate by his side without wavering?”  He looked down at his own shaking hands, _Am I afraid?  
_      Of that future?  
     _Yes.  
_      In the shadows he could feel the haunt of Cundrie watching him.  Judging him.  He looked up at the glowing red light on the altar as if it could answer all his questions.  But there were no answers here.  And no comfort.  He’d burned even this bridge on this night.  
     Turning away, Fakhir resigned himself to what was coming.  He ventured back through town, taking his time, taking the long way until at last his feet carried him back to the Antiquariat.  Even at this late hour the bookmen kept guard in their shop.  
     When Fakhir pushed his way through the door, he saw the old shopkeeper and two others gathered at the desk.  They all turned to him as he entered.  They were clearly waiting.  
      “Is it done?” the shopkeeper demanded.  
     Fakhir stared at him for a long second but did not answer.  Instead he turned away and walked over to his father’s trunk.  He kicked it open and tossed the cloak and gloves inside.  “Tutu,” was all he said.  
     The old men murmured in disgruntlement.  
      “She is still restoring the Prince’s heart?”  
     Fakhir didn’t answer.  He tried to brush by the bookmen as they crowded him.  
      “Stop, boy!” The shopkeeper growled, reaching out as if to cuff him on the ear.  
     Fakhir turned with superior speed, sidestepped the blow and caught the old man’s hand with iron strength, holding him in place.   
     The bookman was no weakling.  Before the curse he’d been a soldier, a warrior, and he had the frame and muscle to back that up.  Once that would have made a difference, but Fakhir was stronger now.  They resisted each other a moment, the bookman’s eyes glowing with anger at this first show of defiance in his pupil.   
     Fakhir held onto him long enough to make his point, and then thrust the old man away from himself. He glared at the other two, daring them to make a move but they didn’t.  “You never told me she was a girl,” he hissed.  
     The shopkeeper’s expression flickered.  “Girl?”  
      “Tutu.”  He spat the name as if to excise the bitter taste of it from his mouth.  
     The bookmen exchanged shocked looks, but it was the shopkeeper who answered him.  “We did not know.  No one knew anything about Princess Tutu.”  
     Fakhir made a sound in his throat, something between cynicism and hysteria.  He snatched the candlestick and candle out of his trunk and closed it again.  “I’m going to look over that book, since you’ve clearly had fifteen years to study it and still haven’t learned anything,” he growled.  He lit his candle and wandered off, climbing the steep and rickety stairs to the second floor of the shop where the stacks of books on their shelves rose even higher.  
     He didn’t have to look for the book he wanted.  It was right where he’d left it on the night he’d brought Mytho back from the millhouse.  Setting the candle down on the tabletop, Fakhir flipped the book open and turned a few pages to the spot he wanted.  The illustration of Princess Tutu glowed on the page before him.   
      “What in the world is there that I need to fear?” he demanded of himself angrily.  _She’s just a little girl!  
_       “Ridiculous,” he swore.  “The prince and the crow, the story that is written here is Mytho’s tale.  The fate of a foolish prince who tried to protect the weak but only ended up hurting himself and losing his own heart.  That’s all.”  He flipped the page in irritation.  
     A sudden soft voice intruded into his brooding thoughts from out the shadows.  “May those who accept their fate be granted happiness.  May those who defy it be granted glory.”   
     Fakhir startled at the sound of the voice—it wasn’t easy to sneak up on him—but he startled more as a hand suddenly snaked around him and closed over his, turning the page of the book.  
     He looked up suddenly at the woman who had appeared out of nowhere, “Who are you?” he demanded.  
     She stared at him impassively, painted face set in a wooden expression.   “The story is continuing,” she murmured in a strangely sing-song voice, “the story is alive.”  
     Fakhir looked down again and saw the drawing of the knight in the shadow of a crow as he was torn in half.  He touched his own chest where the birthmark he’d worn since infancy angled across his body.  Then he reached down and brushed a finger across the scars of the painted knight.  He’d seen the illumination before, but...  “Are you saying this is my fate?”  
     She blinked at him.  “Is it sad for Mytho?  For Rue?  For Duck?  Or for…”  
     Her voice faded away into the distance, forcing Fakhir’s eyes up from the page.  The woman was gone.  “Hey!” he called out, looking around wildly.  He stepped away from the table and rounded a corner of shelves.  A shadow hung at the end of that stack, enlarged by the light being thrown off his candle.  The silhouette of a woman was cast on the far wall, and what looked like strings, but there was no woman in the aisle.  Suddenly the shadow folded like a doll and was drawn upwards.  Fakhir blinked and the illusion was gone.   
      “You still up here, boy?”  
     Fakhir jumped at the sound of the shopkeeper’s voice and circled back through the stacks to face the man.  “Where did she go?” he demanded.  
     The old man blinked at him.  “Who?”  
      “The woman who was just here,” he hissed, pushing past the bookman to glance down the stairs. There was no way she could have gotten past them without being seen.  “Did she go this way?”  
      “There was no woman here,” the old man said slowly.  
      “She was here!”  Fakhir shouted, “She was right here!”  He started to charge down the stairs, intent on finding the strange woman and shaking answers out of her if necessary, but the old man reached out and clapped him on the shoulder.  
      “Where’s the sword?”  
     Fakhir looked back at him with a blank expression.  “Sword?”  
      “The Prince’s sword, boy!” the bookman swore, “Don’t tell me you’ve lost it.  That sword is the key to everything!”  
      “I don’t have it,” Fakhir admitted, knowing that in all the drama of the moment he’d left it behind.  
     The old man’s eyes went wide.  “You.  Left.  It?”  
      “Yes,” Fakhir spat, a streak of rebelliousness rising like bile in the back of his throat.  
      “Where?” the fury was evident in the single clipped word.  
      “With Mytho.”  
     The old man took a step back, his expression twisted in wrath.  “Fool!” he exclaimed.  “Do you know what you’ve done?  You must get it!  You must shatter the Prince’s heart!  It’s what’s best for this town.  It’s what’s best for the Prince!”  
     The rebelliousness burned down to rage and Fakhir stepped forward, grasping the old man’s lapels and pulling him close so they stood only inches apart.  “You don’t know anything about Mytho!” he hissed.  He was tired of being pushed around.  He was tired of other people telling him what to do.  “You don’t know anything about what’s best for him.  _I_ know what’s best for him, and if it means restoring his heart then that’s what I’ll do.”  
      “You’ll what?” the old man sneered.  
     Fakhir tossed him away.  “I’m tired of taking orders from a bunch of old men too buried in their books to know what’s best for anything.”  
     The old man straightened up, “Don’t you go getting willful on me, boy!  We’ve sacrificed too much to let some errant knight fail us now!”  
     Fakhir ground his teeth together, his hands curling into fists.  _My will,_ he realized.  “I _will_ ,” he drawled, his voice rough and ragged, “—do what I must to protect Mytho, nothing more.”  _And not one damn drop less._

***

     Cool mist swirled down the street in milky clouds, settling in corners, rustling silently atop the roadways, restless and mysterious.  The streets were quiet, as befit the morning hour.  Only the earliest of risers were yet out and about.  The bakers were firing their ovens, the fishmongers were laying out their wares on ice, the street sweepers were clearing the debris from the previous day.  Rue walked past it all, frozen and wooden, her eyes fixed unblinking on the middle distance.   
     On one corner of the Marktplatz, a single peddler stood solitary vigil cranking absentmindedly upon an old hand organ.  The tinny sound compelled Rue to blink and look up.  For one moment her eyes met those of the woman’s and with a jolt of shock she recognized her as the same woman from the night she and Aria had stormed the derelict manor.  The woman’s soft, knowing gaze burned into Rue until the girl ducked her chin and hurried around a corner.  She stopped suddenly, breathless and heart beating fast, her back pressed up against the brick wall behind her.  
     Those eyes still seemed to burn into her and she squeezed her own eyes shut only to see another pair of eyes—red and glowing beneath layers of caked black makeup.  _What did I just do?_ She wondered.  Fantasy and reality, waking and dreaming.  They were all one in her head.  She wondered about asking the street peddler what was happening.  She wondered why that didn’t seem like such a crazy idea today when yesterday it would have been insane.  She wondered what the _hell_ was going on.  And why—why… _why can’t I remember where I was last night?  
_      She started to run, blindly with tears streaming down her cheeks.  A week ago all she wanted was to dance Giselle in a packed theater with Mytho at her side.  Now she didn’t know what she wanted.  She wanted to wake up.  She wanted this nightmare to be over.  She wanted… she wanted to run away.  
     But there was nowhere to go.  Rue only knew one life, one destination, and her wayward feet carried her to it with alarming alacrity.  She skidded to a stop at the edge of the swan fountain that flowed just outside the ballet studio on the wide green quad of Gold Crown Academy.  She’d given her body no conscious command to come here, but here she was.  She stared up at the swan of the fountain and saw—impossibly—standing in the swan’s place a girl clad in white with feathers in her hair.  And she knew who the girl was.  _Tutu.  
_      She blinked and the swan was a swan again.  
     It wasn’t a dream.  It wasn’t a nightmare.  It was real, and Rue knew _exactly_ where she was last night.  And what she did.  And who she’d been when she did it.   
     She wrapped her arms around herself again as if it was the depths of winter instead of a warm summer morning.  Feathers rustled and a loud cawing called her attention back to the fountain.  A crow had settled atop the swan, its beady eyes fixed on her.  In the misty light of morning, its beak wet from the fountain and the dew, seemed to drip with blood.  
     Rue stood there, mesmerized, transfixed, paralyzed and held in place by the crow’s red-eyed glare.  Time moved unnoticed around her.  The sun rose, students began filing past on their way to class.  Several greeted her, but none seemed to notice her preoccupation or the murderous crow atop the stone swan.  The cold of winter’s iciest storm had settled in her blood.  
     _I am Rue.  I am not anyone else.  That’s who I’ve always been._   She blinked, forced her gaze away from the crow’s.   _And who I always will be.  
_       “Rue?” a soft, oh-so-familiar voice cut through her nightmare and she turned to see Mytho standing behind her.  
     Rue forced back a wall of tears and wet her lips before answering, “Yes?”  
     His golden eyes held her, so full of _something_ that for one wild moment she thought he might just be able to reach out with one hand and save her, pull her back from the brink of this madness.  _You don’t have to change at all,_ she found herself thinking, screaming the words in her mind as though if she thought them loudly enough he’d obey them.  _You’re fine just as you are.  Why must you keep trying to change when I don’t want to?  I want things to stay as they are.  
_       “I want to know,” he murmured, a strange thoughtfulness and perceptiveness in his voice.  “I want to know whether I love you or not Rue.”  
     All her hope shattered on his words, and a knife as sharp and real as any true blade, twisted into her gut.  In his eyes she saw the swan fountain reflected, and as she did before, Rue saw it as Tutu and the pain of that left her breathless.  
      “Do I really love you?” he asked again.  
     Rue blinked back the bitter tears, forcing anger into the place of her fear, and glared back at him.  “You do!” she snapped.  
      “Then what is this that I feel when I’m thinking of Tutu?”  
      “Tutu,” she growled, as if the inoffensive word were the vilest oath.  None of this had happened before _Tutu_ showed up.  It was all her fault, that little witch!  
      “Rue, maybe I’m actually—”  
     Rue stomped her foot suddenly, gravel flying up with the violence of the act, “Don’t bother me with any of that nonsense!” she shouted suddenly, her voice wild and out of control.  
     And suddenly every student on the quad who previously were so wrapped up in their own lives that Rue and Mytho and their conversation may well have been invisible, had turned their heads to unabashedly witness the drama playing out.  
     Whispers reached her ears, and the knife twisted more deeply into her gut as she discerned the meaning of those words chasing each other across the quad.  
     _“Isn’t this kind of bad?”  
_      _“It looks bad.”  
_      _“What’ll become of those two?”  
_      _“Ruin?  Will they be ruined?”  
_      _“Oh!  They’ll be ruined won’t they?”_  
     Something fragile and irreplaceable fractured inside of her and Rue, searching one final time for salvation in Mytho’s implacable face, turned on her heels and fled before the rising tide of a hundred careless rumors.  She brushed past the shoulder of one of the Sisters, muttered a small automatic apology, and ran on with her heart still shattering inside as she sought for the comfort of silence.  And darkness.

***

     Still and silent, the waters of the small pool stretched out before Aria as she knelt at its edge staring into the serene surface flashing mirror-like up at her.  Her own face looked back out of the watery depths.  Blue eyes, large and wet with tears, underscored by shadowed bruises bespeaking her sleepless night.  Apricot curls hanging limply past her shoulders, over her chest, almost touching the water’s surface as she leaned out.  Pale face, sprinkled over lightly with golden freckles, stark and sorrowed.  She reached up and touched one white cheek and her reflection did the same.  _But is this me?  
_      Closing her eyes, she whispered under her breath.  “ _Quack._ ”  
     When she opened her eyes again the face she saw was black-billed and feathered.  She stepped forward, leaning over the water, and a single tear rolled off the end of her black bill and struck the water, sending a cascade of ripples over its surface that washed the image away.  
     _I’m a duck,_ she thought morosely as she watched the ripples spread.  _Really only a bird.  But what the Prince sees is Princess Tutu in her beautiful dress.  It’s not me.  
_      She touched the water and the face changed again.  Bare arms and shoulders replaced the downy wings.  Titian curls replaced the fluffy feathers.  She touched her cheek and felt the warm skin and another tear welled out.  “What do you think of me?” she whispered, remembering his words.  She knew what he really meant.  _What do you feel for me?  
_      Her eyes squeezed shut.  _I can’t feel anything for him.  I have no right to feel anything, and even if I did I could never say because if Princess Tutu confesses her love she turns into a speck of light and vanishes.  
_       “Duck!” a voice called out through the woods, rousing her from her stasis.  
     Aria looked down in alarm, realizing she was kneeling on her clothes, and hastily pulled them on.  Hopping on one foot, she slipped her feet into the clunky black shoes, her shirt half-buttoned and her jacket askew, hair wild around her face.  “I’m here!” she called back.  
     She only just managed to do up the last of the buttons before Piqué came bursting out of the trees.  “There you are, Duck!” she exclaimed.  “I’ve been looking all over for you.  Do you have any idea what time it is?”  
     Aria glanced absently up at the sky and saw the glow of the sun through the leaves overhead.  _Directly_ overhead.  _Holy pointe shoes!_ The whole morning had slipped away without her noticing.  “Um… is Mr. Catt very upset with me?”  
      “I’ll say he’s upset,” Piqué frowned, hands propped on her hips.  “But that’s not why I came to find you.  Have you heard the news?”  
      “What news?” she stared blankly at her friend.  
     Piqué’s eyes lit up.  “Mytho and Rue are finished.”      
     Aria rolled her own eyes and turned away, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before.”  
      “Only this time it’s true,” Piqué squealed.   
     _That’s odd, usually Lillie’s the one to squeal over boys.  
_       “I heard it from someone who heard it from someone, who heard it from someone who was actually _there._ Mytho and Rue got in a huge fight this morning on the quad because he’s in love with _someone else!”  
_      Aria turned slowly in place to stare back at Piqué.  She couldn’t imagine Mytho ever getting into a _huge fight_ with anyone.  But… _in love with someone else?_   Could it be Princess Tutu?  Would that even matter?  Princess Tutu was really only her and she was really only a duck.  And Rue and Mytho are perfect for each other.  At least Rue is _real._   She turned away with a shrug, “I don’t care.”  
      “You don’t care!?” Piqué threw up her hands.  “Don’t you see, Aria, this is your chance!  Look I know what the rumors are saying, and I know most—okay probably all of it—isn’t true.  But if you _do_ feel something for Mytho then you owe it to yourself to say something to him about it.  And there’s no better time to say it than now.”  
     Aria scrunched up her nose, staring back toward the water.  “What would I even say?” she wondered aloud.  Whatever she felt, whatever that was, she couldn’t confess it.  Because to do so…  
      “Oh I don’t know, ask him to dinner at the pizzeria, or invite him to hang out at your house or something.”  
      “Who’s hanging out at whose house?” Lillie asked, striding easily into the conversation.  She was eating an overlarge pretzel.  
      “I was just telling Duck that she would ask Mytho to her house.”  
     Lillie’s eyes lit up, “Oh!  That’s a wonderful idea.  Wait, where is your house Duck?”  
     Aria glanced at them, “House?”  She didn’t have a house.  She was a duck.  She didn’t have parents.  Well maybe _somewhere_ there was a mama and papa duck missing their chick, but she didn’t have _real_ parents.  
      “Yeah, I don’t know either,” Piqué pinned her with a stare.  “Where is your house?”  
      “At the lake.”  
     Aria blinked.  She didn’t even know why she’d said that.  But there it was in her mind, an enormous lake in a mountainous valley, a palace on a hill built by a fairy tale king.  
      “The lake?” Lillie repeated back blankly.  
      “I mean it’s out toward the lake,” Aria quickly recovered.  _Lake?  What lake?  I’ve never been to a lake.  There isn’t even a lake_ in _Goldkrone Towne.  
_       “So I guess it’s outside of town?” Piqué clarified, “That’s no good.  But there’s still the pizzeria.  Come on Duck, this is your chance!”  
     _Chance for what?  To turn into a speck of light?  Vanish?  
_       “Well it’s all our chances to get detention if we don’t get back to campus,” Lillie pointed out.  “The lunch hour is almost over.”  
     Aria frowned at Lillie’s practical words.  _Okay, who switched my two best friends?_ Before she could point out the oddity of their swap, Lillie hurried them both out of the woods and back to school.  She was right, they’d only just reached the quad when the quarter hour chimed, warning students to return.  
     Aria mutely followed behind the other two, watching the toes of her own shoes, which is why she didn’t see Mr. Catt standing directly in her path until she’d collided with him.  “Oh!” she cried out in horror, stepping back and slapping her hands over her mouth when she realized what she’d done.  
     Piqué and Lillie stood frozen a few paces away, watching the scene with large eyes.  
     Mr. Catt glared down at her coldly.  “Miss Arima.  Well, well, have you decided to grace us with your presence this afternoon?”  
      “I, um, uh … that is…” she trailed off into nonsensical sounds.  
     Mr. Catt was not amused.  “Miss Arima, I wonder what it is that you think you are doing here?”  
     She stared around at where she stood in the middle of the quad and struggled to remember what day it was.  Tuesday?  What classes did she have on Tuesday?  Latin grammar?  No, music theory?  That wasn’t right.  Analytical geometry?  “Um, I’m going to Grecian history?”  
     Behind their teacher, Piqué and Lillie both shook their heads sharply.  
     Mr. Catt shot them both a stern look, “I believe you ladies are going to be late to pointe training.”  
     _Crap!  
_      Piqué and Lillie both squeaked and ran away, abandoning Aria with the glaring director.  She swallowed hard and stared up at him.  “I’m sorry, Mr. Catt, I know I’ve been a bad student lately, it’s just that there’s so much going on and with everything it’s hard to remember where I’m supposed to be going next and most of the time I think I’m coming when I’m actually going and nothing makes sense and I’m just a girl, but really I’m—”  
      “Miss Arima,” he cut off before she could speak the damning words.  His lips were pressed together in a thin white line, and the look he was giving her could have cut diamond.  “This is hardly the first of your infractions.  You are already on probation, we have tried detention, it seems that none of the usual disciplinary methods work with you.  I wonder what it is that you are wanting from this Academy?”  
     Aria gaped at him like a fish out of water.  “What I want?”  What _did_ she want?  She wanted to restore the Prince’s heart to him.  She wanted Mytho to smile.  She wanted to stay a girl.  She wanted… him _to come home and the reign of the Raven to bloodlessly end.  
_      Her mouth snapped closed and her eyes went wide as that thought slipped up from the recesses of her mind.  She waited for the flash of white light to burn it away, anticipating the sharp stab of pain associated with it.  But when it didn’t come she felt oddly disoriented.  _Is that what the light does?  Does it wipe away my thoughts?_ But then why would it?  And what did that thought even mean?  And where had it come from?  She was a duck.  Were ducks afraid of ravens?  What the hell!?  
     Mr. Catt was staring at her, head cocked to one side.  “Do you know how long Miss Kerrane stays in the studio practicing each day?” he asked of her.  
     Aria dumbly shook her head.  
      “No.  Well, for the rest of this week you are to remain in the studio practicing for as long as Miss Kerrane does.  When she leaves, you may leave.  Is that understood?”  
      “Yes Mr. Catt.”  
     He turned away but before he’d taken more than a few steps he shot another look at her over his shoulder.  She was staring at the ground, twisting her skirt in her hands.  “Miss Arima?”  
      “Yes sir?”  
      “Pointe class.  Now.”

 

     One good thing came from Mr. Catt’s latest disciplinary measure.  At least in the small dance studio Aria wasn’t worried about the Prince, or Fakhir, or Krähe, or the fact she was only a duck.  She was a little worried she might not be able to walk tomorrow, but her muscles ached and her feet stung so much there was little room left in her brain to be occupied with the usual worries.  Miss Ziegenfuss had remained only long enough to show Aria the simple combination of moves she was to work on, an arrangement of barre drills that made her arms ache and her thigh muscles burn.  And she stood in one corner of the room, as far from the center as possible, repeating the rudimentary pattern over and over as she watched Rue glide across the hardwood.  
     Rue was amazing.  So perfect and poised.  So completely disciplined.  At least while she was watching Rue, Aria wasn’t thinking about herself.  Nor could she quite quell the uprising jealousy in her chest.  Rue was everything Aria wasn’t.  She was beautiful.  She was graceful.  She was _Mytho’s.  
_      Aria was only a duck.  
     She didn’t like being jealous.  She didn’t like the taste of the dark feeling welling up in her mouth.  She tried to crush it back to its dark corner in her mind and lock it away.  But as she watched Rue dance she couldn’t quite quash the yearning to be _more_ than she was.  She also couldn’t quite quell the _something_ that tickled at the back of her consciousness as she watched the ballerina’s graceful movements.  Her long black hair was piled high on her head in a perfect bun.  The skirt of her red ballet dress swirled around her hips as she spun across the floor.  She spun so dizzyingly fast Aria fancied that she could whip up a storm … _throwing leaves and dirt up in a tornado of force.  
_      Aria gasped and narrowed her eyes on the dancer.  Rue couldn’t be, she wasn’t…  Was Rue Krähe?  The hair could almost be the same, that midnight black.  Her eyes were dark and so were Krähe’s.  But Rue was modest and sweet, and the perfect semblance of obedient student.  Krähe was dark and seductive and malicious.  They weren’t the same person were they?  She didn’t want to believe it but … Krähe _had_ to be someone, just like she was Princess Tutu.  Certainly no one would expect the regal Princess Tutu to be caged in the clumsiest student of the Academy.  Was it possible the grossly malevolent Krähe could be housed in the sweet ballerina?  
     When Rue finally quit for the day, switching off the gramophone and reaching for her towel, Aria dropped gratefully out of her exercises.  Her body wanted to collapse—either from the workout or her sleeplessness, or the weight of her new suspicions.  But instead, prompted by her own curiosity and wanting assurance that what she suspected could never be true, Aria crossed hesitantly over the wide wooden floor.  
      “You know Rue,” she called out when she was only a few paces away from the girl who was now sitting and idly unlacing her pointe shoes.  “You really dance beautifully en pointe.”  
     Rue glanced at her with a trace of irritation.  “Are you still here?” she muttered under her breath.  
     Aria pretended not to hear her.  “When you and Mytho dance it’s always so wonderful.  I’d love to dance like that but there’s no way I can yet.”  
     Rue sat back, leaning her hands on the floor, and glanced in her direction.  “Did you want something?”  
      “Oh, uh, well,” Aria stared at the floor, nervously tucking a curl of hair behind her ear.  “Earlier you mentioned Princess Tutu…”  
     Rue huffed and resumed unlacing her shoes.  “Just what are you babbling on about?  A fairytale like that is of no importance.”  
     Aria smiled suddenly.  The girl’s exasperation was real.  She didn’t believe that the story was true.  Surely that meant she couldn’t be Krähe?  “You’re your usual self,” she sighed.  
      “Of course I am,” Rue sniffed a bit haughtily, “I’m not going to change.  If you want to say something, hurry up and say it.”  
      “There’s nothing really,” Aria replied lightly, spinning across the floor.  She was suddenly so happy she _wanted_ to dance.  “You know, I think the first person to dance en pointe was incredible!  Don’t you?”  
     Rue looked up at her, interest lighting her eyes.  “There’s a story about the toe shoes of the first person to dance en pointe.  Do you know what happened to them?”  
      “What?” Aria dropped out of her spinning and faced Rue.  “No.”  
     Rue shrugged lightly, “They were eaten.”  
      “They what?” Aria demanded, horrified at the thought.  Who would eat someone’s smelly _shoes?  
_      A small smile flickered over Rue’s face.  “By a person who worshiped that ballerina.”  
     Aria stared at her not sure how she should react to that.  “That’s … kind of amazing.”  
     Rue shrugged again and got to her feet.  “It’s a stupid story,” she laughed.  The laughter died on her lips as quickly as it had begun and she narrowed a look at Aria for a fast second, “Strange, I’ve never talked like this with another girl before.”  
     Aria’s eyes went wide.  She’d always thought Rue and the other girls from the special class were a pack or something.  This was how you spoke to the friends in your pack, right?  She had never thought of Rue as friendless before. “Oh?  Do you hate this kind of thing?”  
      “I don’t think I hate it,” Rue murmured thoughtfully.   
     Aria smiled, “I’m glad.”  A surge of sympathy and something else rose up to replace the jealousy she’d felt before.  She took a hesitant step forward.  Did Rue _want_ a friend?  “So we can become even better friends, right?”  
      “You think?” Rue asked, her eyebrows going up.  
     Aria pursed her lips.  Maybe she should ask her for something, something that would make them better friends?  “Hey Rue, teach me something about going en pointe?”  
     Rue laughed, “And why should I teach you?”  
     Aria grinned up at her, “Because we’re friends.”  
     Rue frowned, but there was a glint of amusement in her eyes.  “You’ve got a lot of cheek.”  
     Aria laughed at that, but the laugh died in her throat when her pendant pulsed against her chest.  Her eyes slide past Rue to the window.  A face drifted by outside, lost in the shadows but unmistakably human.  For some reason, it unnerved her.  Was someone watching them?  “Hey Rue,” she muttered, voice low, “Is that your friend too?”  
     Rue looked over to the window “Where?” she demanded.  
     But the face was gone and the pendant cool once again.  “She disappeared,” Aria whispered in disbelief.   
     Rue shot her a wry look of exasperation.  “You’re weird,” she commented, collecting her things and heading for the door.  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Duck.”  
     Aria was still staring at the window.  Someone _had_ been there.  Was it Krähe?

 


	18. Der Wechselbalg

**_The Changeling_ **

****

     Aria rushed from the studio to the space outside where she’d seen the face at the window.  Her ballet flats slapped gracelessly against the paving stones as she hurried.  But when she arrived no one was there.  She looked around the near-empty quad, her eyes scanning those few who remained:  One professor in black academic robes, three boy’s in blue blazers carrying an overlarge prop into the theater for prepping, and on the far end of the quad hurrying quickly away was a slim figure swathed in grey.  At first Aria thought she was a student, but the length of the skirt was too long and she was wearing … a veil?  
     _One of the Sisters?  
_      Aria took a step in her direction, but a rustle from the bushes pulled at her attention and she turned instead.  There, caught in the branches of a shrub, was a tattered piece of paper.  Curious, Aria retrieved the paper and smoothed it in her hands.  It was a small sketch of a ballerina in arabesque.  It was actually quite good.  There was an initial M in one corner of the sketch and Aria looked up again where the sister had disappeared.  _Did she drop this?  
_      Overcome by curiosity Aria started after the sister but the slapping of her ballet flats gave her pause.  She glanced down at her leotard and tights and wrinkled her nose in distaste.  There was no way she was crossing Goldkrone Towne dressed like this.  She hurried back to the lockers rooms and changed quickly.  
     Sunset was just beginning to blaze across the sky when she crossed the canal out of school and turned toward the towering spire of St. Godfrey’s and the tiny abbey tucked underneath it.  If the sister _had_ been loitering outside the studio window, Aria wanted to know.  More importantly, she wanted to know if her pendant had pulsed for the sister or something else.  
     Before long she stood in St. Godfrey’s square looking up at the impressive bell tower as the bell inside rang the hour calling the faithful in for service.  Aria wasn’t particularly faithful herself—ducks didn’t have any kind of organized religion—but she felt the ponderous pull of the bell and there was a flash, however briefly, in her mind of the sky over St. Godfrey’s tower lit ablaze with a riot of swirling color.  Shaking her head to dismiss the strange notion of northern lights over Goldkrone Towne, Aria turned to the abbey and made her way to its humble wooden door.  
     There was no answer to her knock, either because the sisters had all gone to service, or because the strange sister she’d seen in the school was standing on the other side and didn’t want to let her in.  Aria was tempted to shout through the door, but the first strains of music were drifting out of the cathedral and she bit her tongue.  After all, the pendant had only pulsed once, and now it was stone cold.  Slightly frustrated, she started to turn away, placing a hand against the door to push off the step.  The door gave a click and swung open under the pressure.  
     Aria turned with some surprise to the open door.  _Huh, well that’s convenient.  But maybe I shouldn’t go in._   The hallway before her was narrow, dim, and completely unoccupied.  _Or maybe I can just take a quick look since no one’s around._   Fighting her better nature, Aria stepped over the threshold.  Inside the abbey the warm summer evening was chilled to a pleasant coolness, and as Aria wandered further into its depths it became readily apparent that there was no one here.  She was about to give up the search when she came across a doorway leading into a wide room set with a single table laid out for dinner.  The walls of the room were richly painted with the scene of a forest, making it appear that the dinner laid out was set as a picnic in some sun-lit forest glade.  
     Enchanted at the master craftsmanship, Aria turned into the room and examined the finer details of the mural.  It stretched across every wall from the floor to the ceiling.  Light and shadow seemed to play through the thick trunks, and every now and again small traces of wildlife could be spotted hidden in and amongst the towering trunks and verdant leaves.  Her eyes were pulled to one particularly well rendered bush, its delicate blossoms brushed on over the plaster with such rich detail Aria felt sure she could reach out and pluck one up.  She leaned toward it, half expecting to smell the faint aroma of roses, and noticed coiled amongst the lower branches of the bush was the same M from the sketch.  
     _An artist!_ she realized.  The same artist.  And an incredibly talented artist at that.  
      “I see you have discovered the abbey’s most coveted secret.”  
     Jumping guiltily away from the wall at the sound of another person, Aria spun quickly to face the woman who’d spoken.  She expected another grey-clad sister.  What she was met with instead nearly had her jumping in fright again.  The woman who stood before her was tall, her head nearly brushing the beam of the doorway she stood in.  She was clad in an elegant black dress that swept to the ground.  Shiny purple gloves encased her arms to the elbows, and a swooping silk scarf was neatly wrapped around her throat and face so that not one inch of skin or strand of hair was visible.  
     _A faceless woman?_ she wondered in awe.  The pendant at her throat throbbed and she closed a hand around it.  _There’s a heart shard around here!  
_      The woman stepped further into the room and her face turned as if she were looking at the walls.  “The sisters are not meant to own anything for themselves, they lead a humble life free of luxury, but the human soul continues to pursue the art of beauty.”  This elicited a strange sort of laugh from the veiled stranger.  
      “I-I’m sorry,” Aria rushed to apologize, “I didn’t mean to intrude, I—”  
     The woman’s masked face swung quickly her way.  “You are not intruding, my dear.  Any of God’s daughters are welcome here always.”  
     Emboldened by the woman’s words, Aria gestured at the wall again where the flowering bush was depicted.  “Did one of the sisters paint this?” she asked.  
      “Sister Mary Malen, a young but extremely talented novice as you can see.”  
      “Oh!”  Aria fumbled slightly, suddenly unsure of herself.  “I-is she around here somewhere?”  
      “In the nave with the other sisters.  It is their hour of worship.”  
      “T-the other sisters?”  She took a hesitant step toward the strange woman.  “You’re not a sister?”  
     The veiled stranger laughed again at this, and the sound was strange coming from her concealed face.  Without features to pair it to Aria didn’t know if it was amused or cynical.  The woman turned to look at her and bowed her head with a deferential little curtsy.  “No my dear, I am simply a forgotten character in an unfinished subplot of life.”  
     That was a… strange thing to say.  _Character?  Subplot?  Does this woman know about the story?_ No, she couldn’t could she?  Or maybe she did.  Fakhir knew Mytho was a Prince from a story.  Rue knew he didn’t have a heart.  Maybe this woman knew something about it too.  The pendant she clasped was practically burning against her palm and she wasn’t entirely certain it was because of her proximity to the mysterious missing Malen.  Maybe it was this woman.  
      “I am Cundrie,” the woman spoke then, interrupting her thoughts.  “A poor widow who came to live with the sisters when my husband passed and left me penniless.”  
     _Maybe not._  
      “Oh,” Aria didn’t really know what to say to that.  “I’m sorry.”  
      “It is no matter, my dear,” the woman waved away her words.  “It was a long time ago.  Did you have a question to ask the sisters?”  
      “I, uh—I was just looking for Malen,” she explained, holding out the half-finished sketch in a shaking hand.  “She dropped this at the school and I wanted to give it back and…” and what?  Find out if she had a heart shard, but Aria could hardly say that in front of this woman.  The burning pendant had gone cold again and Aria was starting to wonder if she was losing her edge.  Or her mind.  
     The woman’s silk-gloved hand plucked the paper from her fingers.  “I shall pass this along then, shall I?”  
      “Oh!  But I was hoping to speak—”  
      “The novices are not allowed visitors after curfew,” the woman spoke kindly.  “Though if you wish it, you may find her in the art school at your academy after classes.  She goes there every day but Sunday in her free hour to practice her skills.”  
     Aria brightened immediately, “Thank you!” she chimed, buoyed by the information.  “I’ll do that!”  She turned to go then, slipping past the woman and through the door into the hall that led out of the abbey, but the woman called her back.  
      “I have something for you,” she spoke up.  
     Aria turned and saw that the woman now held a shining white feather in her hand, the sketch having disappeared somewhere into her voluminous skirt.  The feather almost seemed to glow and she was immediately entranced.  “What is it?”  
      “It is the feather of a swan that flew seven times around the world,” the veiled stranger answered in a sepulchral tone.  “Such objects are highly prized amongst those that collect them, and are reputed to have sometimes strange powers.”  
     Aria offered a small smile and pulled her eyes from the feather with some effort.  “Oh if that’s the case, I’m sure it’s quite valuable and I don’t have any money.”  She turned again to go but didn’t make it very far.  
      “This feather has a simple price, one I’m sure you’re able to pay.”  
     Curiosity compelled her to turn back, her head tipped to one side.  “What is the price?”  
      “Your name.”  
     Aria swallowed hard.  A strange sort of prickling feeling raised the fine hairs at the nape of her neck and she almost wished she’d freed her hair of its bun when she changed that she might hide some of the heat rising to her face behind her wayward curls.  “My name?” she wondered why the woman would want something she would have freely given had it been asked of her.  But now that the information had a price—and her eyes went to the gleaming feather again—she felt a strange reluctance in releasing it.  Still, the way the light shimmered off the pearly feather made her fingers itch to reach out and take it.  “A-aria,” she heard herself stammering.  The woman’s hand remained firmly around the feather and she had the impression she was waiting for more.  “Aria Arima.”  
     With a contented little sound, the woman deposited the feather in Aria’s outstretched hand, then stepped back and folded her own hands over the stomacher of her gown.  Her head tipped down and up and it seemed that she was examining Aria from head to toe.  “You are less than I would expect, and yet you are somehow more.  Such a beautiful girl.  But still so young.”  Her words were tinged with sadness.  “It is a terrible burden for such small shoulders, that name.  One would hope you’ve the strength to bear it, and the wisdom not to bow to it.”  
     Aria had no idea what to think of that statement, but the feeling of uneasiness that settled in her stomach felt like lead.  “Uh, th-thank you?”  She turned quickly to go, suddenly yearning for the light, and warmth of the outside world, and her feet hurried rapidly back up the hall.  She didn’t turn around, but she felt certain the woman’s eyes never left her until she’d firmly shut the door of the abbey behind her retreating back.

***

     Rue was barely listening as Miss Baillieu wrapped her lesson on musical theory.  Her head had been in a fog for three days now, since waking up Monday morning with no idea where she’d been the previous night or how she got back to her room.  And then the disembodied voice and the glowing red figure… she’d managed to convince herself that it was a dream, but with each passing day and each passing strange encounter—each snippet of lost time—it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so.   
     A cold chill had taken up permanent residence on the back of her neck.  A knot of nerves had settled into her stomach for the duration.  Her nerves were frayed to the ragged edge, and she felt as though a wire of tension had been corded through each of her limbs and down her spine—being pulled ever tighter.   
     Her friends, if they could be called that, seemed to take no notice of her unease.  The other girls of the special class continued to chat happily in her presence, to pass notes in class, to gossip on the other students and pass judgement upon the poorer members of the junior class.  All activities she had once participated in without thought before.  Now such pastimes seemed exceedingly frivolous, and Rue felt entirely adrift in a world which had exalted her, but failed to _see_ her.  
      “Now that concludes today’s lecture on Pythagorean harmonics.”  
      “Cripes, I thought she’d never shut up,” Heidi muttered to Rue’s left as the brooding blonde gathered her books off her desk and stood.  “I am so ready to get out of here.  One of the guys secured a barrel of beer, they’re going to tap into it out at the old graveyard.”  
      “You know you’ll blow up like a balloon on that stuff,” Mindy scoffed, “It’s worse than sweet pastries, and I’m not going to help you explain to Mr. Catt why you can’t fit into your Giselle costume.”  
     Heidi rolled her eyes, “You’re out then.”  She turned to Rue, “What about you, are you in?”  
     Rue looked up at her absently, “Hmm?”  
      “Cute danseurs and beer, and Eric promised to bring his fiddle, out at the old graveyard?”  
     Rue shuddered, “Why would you want to spend time in that place?”  
     Heidi shrugged, “Nobody goes there.  It’s the perfect place.”  
      “No thanks.”  She stood and gathered up her own books as the students filed out of the classroom.  Inadvertently her eyes strayed to the back of the room where Duck was sitting looking a little dejected.  Two junior students—Letty and Pike?—were commiserating with her.   
      “Try to have fun in detention,” the one Rue thought might be Letty murmured, patting her on the shoulder before turning away.  
     Rue paused, falling behind the others.  “Duck?  You can’t go home yet?”  
     _Home._   The word struck a painful chord within her.  She couldn’t go _home_ either.  She didn’t even know what _home_ looked like.  For the longest time it had been Gold Crown Academy.  Now she wasn’t so sure.  
     Duck’s friends froze in shock, gazing open-mouthed at Rue in apparent astonishment.   
      “Yeah,” Duck mumbled, “I have to stay and wipe all the classroom windows as punishment.”  
     Pursing her lips, unsure about the surge of disappointment that Duck’s words elicited, Rue could only mumble her own “Oh” in response.  Oddly, the idea of washing windows had never seemed so appealing as it did right now.  _Did I really want to walk back to the dorms with her?  What a weird thing._ But the feeling was undeniable.  “Well, I’ll see you around,” she muttered and turned quickly away before Duck or her friends could react in any way.  
     It didn’t really surprise her that none of her _friends_ from the special class had waited around for her as she left.  It’s true, everyone at school was nice to her.  _Deferential_ might be a better way of putting it.  The professors doted on her, the ballet instructors praised her.  All the girls wanted to be her, and all the boys just wanted her.  But when it came down to the wire, Rue reflected that she didn’t _really_ have any friends.  She didn’t even have Mytho.  Not really.  The business with Annette only underscored that reality.  
     Duck was different.  She wasn’t affected by the aloof air Rue affected.  She offered no deference.  She had absolutely no concept of the differences in their ranks nor any regard for it.  What she gave instead was a fresh honesty and earnestness.  “Friends,” She murmured under her breath.  It was hardly to be conceived.  But Duck was the only one, the only one who’d ever offered to be friends with Rue simply to be _friends._   She really was quite sweet.  
     These thoughts and others consumed her mind as she made her way out of school for the day and turned down the road toward the dorms.  Overhead, unseen by her as she walked, a flock of crows dogged her steps with feathered determination.  While in her wake a grey-robed figure looked on from the shadows of the school.  
     She thought of Duck’s sweet face the day Annette had tried to steal Mytho.  The way the other girl had looked up at her—they hadn’t even really known each other then—there was no reason she should offer any kind of sympathy at all and yet there she’d been.  _“You really suit each other.”  
_      Rue froze suddenly, her steps stuttering to a stop.  “Suit each other?”  
     How could they?  She had only stolen Mytho.  She’d told him he loved her and the dummy he was he’d believed her.  Nothing in her life was real.  It was all a lie.  A carefully constructed house of cards.  Tears stung her eyes at the realization and she clung her books more tightly to her chest, almost running now was the crows kept pace on their ebon wings overhead.  
     She reached the dorm courtyard and careened around the corner, almost crashing into Fakhir on his way out.  The danseur growled at her dangerously, but she pushed past him not wanting him to see the tears in her eyes.  She didn’t care about Fakhir.  She didn’t care about Duck.  She didn’t even care about dancing.  
     She cared about Mytho.  
     Her white-gold prince.  
     Her stolen dream.  
     She reached the dorm and threw open the door, slamming it shut behind her and closing out the raucous calls of the crows.  She leaned her back against it, glad that the foyer was empty and no one could see her red cheeks or windswept hair.  “I don’t need any of them,” she said to herself.  She wanted the words to sound firm, but they came out on a sob.  
     _The only person I need is Mytho._   No one could understand that.  He was everything.  She _loved_ him.  Even if he couldn’t love her the same way, she loved him.  She loved his kindness, the kindness so innate to him that even without a heart it could not be stripped from his soul.  The kindness that had reached out to an orphan girl all alone in a frightening world and shown her a little slice of what it meant to matter to someone.  He was beautiful.  Not just his looks, but his _soul._   A soul so brilliant it couldn’t be contained, it shone out through his eyes with every look.  Even his shattered heart could not dull the shine of his soul.  And that’s all she needed.  She didn’t need his heart.  She didn’t need his love.  She just needed _him.  
_      But would he love her if he had all those things to give?  
     The tears forming in her eyes fell free and left hot trails down her cheeks.  _I need him, but the one Mytho needs is… Princess Tutu  
_      In a daze, Rue climbed the stairs to her room.  Her books fell from her hand the moment she’d closed the door behind her in her escape to solitude.  They tumbled across the carpeted floor and she didn’t care.  She crossed to her bed and perched on its edge.  
      “Princess Tutu will change everything,” she whispered.  “She’ll change Mytho, and he’ll only grow more distant from me.”  The thought sent sharp daggers of pain spiraling in her chest.  “I can’t let that happen.”  
     _“Then what are you going to do about it?”  
_      Rue jumped up in alarm, spinning in place to scan the empty room.  She was alone.  But she’d heard the voice hadn’t she?  Her eyes fell to the window.  “What!?”  
     _“A beautiful black swan,”_ the voice cooed at her, seeming to emanate from all around.  
     Cold shivers slid across her skin.  _Mad, I’m going utterly mad.  
_      _“Who is the heroine of this story?”_ the voice droned on.  _“Is it Princess Tutu?  Or is it Princess Krähe?”  
_      Rue stared out the window in wonder, “Princess Krähe … the heroine?”  There was no Krähe in Drosselmeyer’s story.  Images flashed in her mind.  The Prince.  Princess Tutu.  And another, one dressed all in black.  Krähe?   
     The voice cackled, _“A story doesn’t need two heroines, does it?  And a prince doesn’t need two princesses.”  
_       “What does that mean?” she gasped.  
     _“I don’t know,”_ the voice answered with another dry cackle, _“Why don’t you tell me what happens next?”  
_      She started to shiver and wrapped her arms around herself.  _Am I really doing this?_ she wondered.  _I’m talking to a voice that can’t possibly be there.  
_      _“Oh I’m really here,”_ the spectral voice assured her.  _“I’ve always been here, my dear.  I’ll always be here.”  
_      The cold that seeped through her at the thought seemed to freeze the very marrow of her bones.  Her eyes were fixed on the window, which was why she saw clearly as day the moment the crow on the ledge manifested.  It didn’t land there.  It didn’t fly in.  It seemed to simply fade into existence out of nothing.  Its ruby-red eyes burned through the glass and seemed to sear into her soul.  Its large frame was so much bigger than the other crows that circled in the sky behind it.  
     _Not a crow,_ she realized in terror.  _A raven.  
_       “I just want to stay the same,” she whimpered, not knowing where the words even came from.  An awful, childlike fear had gripped her soul and frozen her to her spot.  She hugged her chest, shaking all over, “never changing.”  
     The raven outside continued to stare unblinkingly into her soul.  _“No one can stay the same forever.”_   She knew it was her imagination, but she seemed to hear the words in the Raven’s throaty call as it cawed through the glass.   
     The word _nevermore_ and an old, forgotten poem flashed through her mind and she felt the hysterical need to suddenly laugh.  “Princess Tutu will change Mytho…”  
     The Raven stared back.  
     Rue’s eyes fell shut and she fought the rising taste of bile.  “I just want Mytho,” she confessed in a thin voice.  
     The Raven opened its beak and cawed once.  _“Then take him.”  
_      Her eyes opened on a startled exclamation of alarm as the window flew open.  A pair of crows soared into the room over the Raven’s head and landed on the ground at her feet.  The moment they touched the floor they transformed into a satiny pair of black toe shoes.  Rue stared at them, horrified and mesmerized all at once.  Her eyes went to the Raven on the sill, and back to the shoes.  
     _“If you want the Prince.  Take him.”_  
     Her hands closed into fists and Rue kicked off her shoes.  She dipped first one, then the other foot into the black toe shoes.  
     The sudden flash of agony that tore through her body was like fire racing over her skin.  Her mouth opened in a silent scream and she threw her head back as ribbons of black cascaded up over her body.  The world faded out, faded in, faded out again as the fire grew inside her.  Hot flames seemed to lick up within and without, and when the world faded in again she saw herself reflected back in the window glass.  Only it wasn’t Rue she saw.   
     It was Krähe.

 


	19. Der true ergebene Freund

**_The Devoted Friend_ **

 

     From her place in the upper classrooms of Noverre Hall where she stood on a small stepstool cleaning windows with a rolled up ball of newspaper, Aria clearly saw the grey clad figure that glided out the side door of the Hall and headed toward the art school on the southwestern corner of campus.  It was a sister not a student, of that Aria was certain even at this distance.  There was no mistaking the length of the skirt, or the veil on her head.  The strange Cundrie’s words of the day before resounded in her mind.  Although she’d expected the sister to enter the campus from the main gate, there was no mistake in her mind who it could be.  
     Sister Mary Malen.  
     Chunking her wad of newspaper in the trashcan, Aria leapt off the stepstool and charged out of the classroom, detention and chores and everything else forgotten.  Her hand was closed tight around the pulsing pendant in her hand and she wasn’t sure if the pulsing came from a nearby heart shard, or her own racing heart.  
     Aria had never really spent much time exploring the campus of Gold Crown Academy, so it came as no surprise that this was the first time she’d entered the art school building which sat catty-corner to Noverre Hall.  Like all the other campus buildings it was a multistoried complex with lots of high windows of leaded glass, and upon stepping inside she was hit with a strange and alien wave of familiarity mixed with the sensation of discovery.  It was like she’d been here before and never been here at all, and for a quick second the wave of sensation seemed to knock the breath out of her.  
     Then reality took over and Aria charged ahead.  The building was mostly quiet at this time of day.  A few senior students were still around, working on projects here and there.  She opened doors and peeked inside to discover a carpentry shop, a sculptor’s studio, several painting and drawing rooms, but no Sister Mary Malen.   
     Finally, at the end of the hallway on the first floor, she opened a room into a shadowy studio that seemed at first glance to be empty.  She was about to close the door and head to the stairs, when her eyes snagged on a veiled figure sitting on a stool before a half-finished canvas.  The only light in the room fell from a large window just beyond the Sister and her easel, casting a spotlight-like square of illumination over the artist.   _Aha!  
_       “Um, hello?” Aria spoke into the darkened room uncertainly.  
     The Sister jerked away from her work, and her veiled head swiveled around at the sudden interruption.  Eyes as grey as the habit she wore went huge in her face, and then as she took in the girl standing in the door, they softened.  “Oh,” she murmured, “you’re one of the ballet students.”  
     Aria recognized her with a start.  This was the nurse’s assistant she’d met only a few days ago.  “Hi,” she said, twisting her skirt in her hand.   
      “Are you feeling better?” Mary Malen asked when Aria said nothing more.  
     Aria just stared at her.  Against her chest the pendant was cold and dead.   No heart shard.  Maybe?  She didn’t know, and her social awkwardness was rapidly taking over.  “Cundrie said you might be here today,” Aria stammered.  She didn’t notice the way the Sister’s eyes glossed over in confusion at the mention of the mysterious woman in the convent, “I found a drawing of yours yesterday and I tried to return it, only you weren’t there, so she took it and she said she’d give it to you and maybe she did, but I didn’t know, and I wanted to make sure.  And also, it was like you were watching us yesterday.  Or maybe not _me._   No one would watch me.  I’m not really anything to look at.  But maybe you were watching Rue and…” she broke off babbling as her eyes trailed over the many sketches and canvases filling the room.  “Oh.”  
     There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.  
     Dozens—maybe hundreds—of drawings and paintings filled the small studio, and they all depicted the same subject repeated over and over:  Rue.  
     Sister Mary Malen’s gaze swept over the sketches and color flooded her cheeks.  “Oh, um, yeah I…” she trailed off.  
      “Wow, these are really good,” Aria mumbled, unsure what else to say.  I mean, what are you supposed to say when you wander into an obsessive artist’s lair?  And she wasn’t lying.  They _were_ good.  A bit creepy.  But really, _really_ good.  “I mean, I don’t really know anything about art.  I can’t even draw stick figures.  Although Mr. Catt once suggested I take up finger painting instead of ballet.  I’m not really good at ballet either.  But I’m pretty sure he was kidding.  Or at least I think he was kidding.  Maybe he wasn’t.  But these aren’t stick figures.  These are really good.  And they’re all about ballet.  Well, they’re all about _Rue,_ but while she’s dancing, so that’s kind of the same thing…” Aria was really wishing she could find the off switch for her tongue right now and shut up, but the rising sensation of eeriness kept her incessant ramble at full babble.  
     The color in Sister Mary Malen’s cheeks darkened.  “It isn’t really what it looks like,” the Sister murmured.  
     Aria tore her eyes away from the many drawings and back to the girl who’d drawn them.  “It looks like Rue,” her stupid mouth took off.  “And Rue is really pretty, and you’ve drawn her really well.  I think it looks just like her.  A _lot_ of her—”  
      “I don’t really understand,” the Sister’s quiet voice broke in.  
     Those words finally seemed to flip the switch between Aria’s brain and her tongue.  She swallowed back another mouthful of words and asked instead, “Understand what?”  She realized that in her rambling she’d somehow managed to take several steps into the small studio, and as she had, the burning pulse of the pendant had started to warm against her chest.  
      “I really don’t understand myself,” Mary Malen whispered.  She looked at the many drawings.  “I mean I’ve always enjoyed doing a life drawing with Miss Kerrane as the model but… it used to be I wanted to draw other things too like fruits and landscapes.  But now I can only draw Miss Kerrane.”  
     The creepy feeling flooded back, and Aria felt chills slide down her spine.  “Is that so?” she rasped out of a throat gone suddenly dry.  
      “It hurts when I try to draw anything else,” Mary Malen moaned.  “It’s like—like something _impels_ me to draw Rue and nothing else.  Every time I draw her it never seems right.  _Something_ is always missing.  I’ve even caught myself following her trying to find out what that missing thing is.”  Her voice softened until it was barely audible.  
     Aria’s hand closed unconsciously around the now lividly pulsing pendant.  Almost unconsciously, she took a small step forward and between one heartbeat and the next, transformed into Princess Tutu.  Sister Mary Malen, lost in her own thoughts, didn’t even seem to notice the girl turn into the Princess.  
      “What’s missing, Sister Mary Malen?” Princess Tutu asked.  
     Mary Malen’s eyes slid to the canvas in front of her.  “Something I can’t see,” she murmured.  
     Taking another tentative step into the room, Princess Tutu’s gaze went from the artist to the art, and she caught back a breath.  The huge canvas in front of the Sister was filled with a sketch, only partially painted in, depicting Rue like all the others.  But this one was different.  Rue wasn’t dancing, not really.  She was posed looking at the sky, her arms crossed over her middle, and though the stance seemed almost passive it was filled with a vibrating tension that could be felt through the canvas.  The girl in the picture seemed to be battling something, and the something she was battling loomed behind her.  Shadows surrounded the girl, dark and terrifying, and at the edges the shadows took shape with wings and beaks and ruby eyes.  
     A light flashed in Tutu’s head, bright white and burning, and for an instant she stared at the image of Rue surrounded by the shadows with her heart in her throat.  And then the light died and all she saw was Sister Mary Malen… and the heart shard that stood just beyond her staring back.  
     Mary Malen’s head swung suddenly around and her eyes went huge again, “Who are you?” she asked, seeming to snap back to herself.  
      “Come,” Tutu smiled softly, making the mime for dance.  “Please come dance with me.”  
     The Sister just stared at her, gape-mouthed.  “I can’t dance,” she croaked out.  
      “Don’t worry,” Tutu assured her, bourreeing forward, “Just dance freely.”  She took Mary Malen’s hand and a light seemed to enter the girl’s eyes.  “The source of your pain is the false heart residing within your heart.  I’ll remove it for you.  Then, once again, you’ll be able to draw what you love.”  
      “Really?”  
     Tutu nodded, “Yes.”  
      “Thank you,” Mary Malen sighed, “I’m so glad.”  The Sister reached out and took Tutu’s hand as she slid off her stool, and with that touch Tutu drew the heart shard from her.  All at once, the Sister collapsed, sagging into Princess Tutu’s outstretched arms.  
     Tutu set Mary Malen gently on the floor and faced the heart shard.  “What emotion are you?”  
      “I am the feeling of devotion,” the heart shard answered in Mytho’s voice.  
      “You are a shard of the Prince’s heart which he lost,” she informed it, opening her hands that the shard might reform into a jewel and be returned.  But before she could draw it in, the window suddenly flew open on a violent wind that sent sketches flying everywhere.  
     Krähe rode in upon the wind, her black-feathered head thrown arrogantly back.  “So the feeling of devotion, is it?”  
      “Krähe,” Tutu greeted her nemesis cautiously.  
     Krähe sauntered past the unconscious Sister and wrapped her arms possessively around the heart shard, her chin on its shoulder, and she sneered.  “I will not suffer you to return such a thing to Mytho,” she hissed.  
     Tutu edged a bit closer, cursing her own lack of reaction that allowed the raven-headed Krähe to get between her and the heart shard.  “What will you do?”  
      “Oh I don’t know?” Krähe mocked, “What should I do?”  The words were mocking, and as she spoke them a wave of darkness rose from the floor encasing the heart shard in a crypt.  
      “No!” Tutu dashed forward to stop Krähe, but the other girl whipped out a hand and struck her across the cheek.  The blow sent her reeling to the floor and pain blossomed across her face.  
     Krähe threw back her head and laughed maliciously.  “You had better forget about restoring anymore heart shards to the Prince, little Tutu.”  
     Blinking past the stars exploding behind her eyes, Tutu pushed herself up, “But the Prince told me that he wants to regain his heart!”  She ground the words out through clenched teeth.  
     The door behind them crashed open and both combatants turned their faces to see the subject of their conversation come charging into the room.  Mytho stopped three steps in, his gaze going from the heart shard in the crypt, to the dark seductress standing amidst the whirling chaos of scattered sketches, to Princess Tutu kneeling on the floor.  
      “Tutu,” Mytho breathed, “I’ve finally found you.”

***

     Mytho had been wandering aimlessly when he noticed the murder of crows circling ominously over the southwestern corner of campus.  The birds were no more than a passing curiosity when he first spied them.  He had been dimly aware over the past few days that more and more of the heavy-bodied black creatures were taking up residence in town, but he’d thought no more of it than that.  Then he felt the siren call like a knife to his chest that was the sensation of a piece of his heart discovered and he knew at once that the crows and that feeling were linked.  
     His eyes went up again to where they hovered on ebon wings and fear lanced through him.  The sensation of a discovered heart shard could mean only one thing, _Tutu._   And the sight of the crows could only mean one other.  A part of him knew when he burst into the studio at the far end of the art building what he would find, still he couldn’t help that the blood rushed from his head when he turned from the pale-faced princess kneeling on the floor to the dark seductress that loomed over her.  
     _“Krähe,”_ he breathed the name like a curse.  
     His eyes went to Tutu again, to the mark on her cheek where someone—where _Krähe_ —had struck her, and then turned to the crow princess once more.  
     Krähe’s ruby eyes went wide and she staggered back from him as if _he’d_ struck _her.  
_       “Why do you look at me like that?” she asked, and her voice wasn’t that of the dark seductress.  It was a small and scared like a child’s.  “Am I—” her eyes swung from Mytho to Princess Tutu, to a drawing on an easel beside her.  Her already pale face paled further.  “Am I—”  She retreated another step, her legs seeming to fail beneath her, and she crumpled to the floor.  Her eyes were fixed on the drawing, her hand closed around her throat as if in pain.  
     Princess Tutu jumped to her feet and swiveled toward the Prince, then back to Krähe, before fixing her gaze on a crypt of shadows that stood nearby.  
     It was the crypt that had captured Mytho’s attention.  _He_ stood within it.  Or rather, a piece of his heart did.  It was impossible to describe the feeling of standing there looking at his heart locked into the shadows Krähe had created.  He could _feel_ his heart, and he could feel the shadows surrounding it.  The oppressive weight of it seemed to freeze him in place.  
     Krähe wasn’t paying any attention to them now, transfixed as she was by the drawing on the easel.  Her eyes were streaming with tears that cut streaks through her heavily made up face.  Mytho found himself wondering what the face of the girl beneath the layers of powder would look like and how many tears it would take to wash that face clean.  
     Princess Tutu also seemed affected by Krähe’s tears, but her attention was drawn to the heart shard trapped in its crypt.  The shadows fell away as whatever power the crow princess was using to hold it seemed to ebb with her breakdown.  Tutu leapt forward at once and held out her hands, summoning the jewel of his heart into the safety of her grasp.  
     Mytho let out a sudden breath as the weight that held him lifted, and he almost staggered at the relief of it.   
     Tutu’s attention turned to the kneeling crow, and she took a hesitant step toward the girl with the piece of his heart still safely cradled in her gentle hands.  “Krähe,” she ventured hesitantly as if the sight of the girl’s tears was breaking her heart.  
     Mytho took a half step toward her, already reaching out to snatch her away with a word of warning rising up in his throat when Krähe threw up her own hand.  “Stay away!” she cried out as if Tutu had burned her.  
     Tutu flinched back, her eyes going to Mytho and he could see the agony written there.  Despite everything else he could sense that Tutu’s heart _was_ breaking at the sight of Krähe’s pain.  For some reason that made something warm he had no name for grow inside of him.  
     Her mouth twisting in disappointment, she turned away from Krähe and stepped toward him.  He crossed the space between them and took her hands in his as she lifted them, needing to touch her.  Her eyes went wide at his touch, but she let him raise her hands to his chest, twisting her closed palms to place the burning jewel of his heart just over the place where it should be.  He welcomed the pain as pieces of his heart knit back together, and the window in his mind opened again showing him things he _should_ remember.  
     _A terrible pain, a sword at his chest.  
_      _“For you…”  
_      _Memories flashing, a child’s laughter…  
_      _Dreams unfulfilled, a beauty in white…  
_      _The sight of tears glittering on steel.  
_      Mytho opened his eyes to see Tutu looking up at him.  The warmth he’d felt growing inside him flared at the sight of her standing there, at the feel of her hands in his, and he wanted more.  He wanted to _remember._   There was something… something just there.  Something important.  It beat against the walls of his mind, screaming in words he couldn’t decipher, and filling him with a strange and unsettling restless energy.  
     Tutu’s large eyes were fixed on him, a thousand questions circling in those blue depths.  But before she could voice them a small sob made her start and she turned slightly away from him.  He didn’t release her hands, which made her twist in place to see the dark ballerina still kneeling on the floor, now clutching her arms over her middle.  “Krähe,” Tutu’s voice broke on the word, “why are you in such pain?”  
      “What?” the girl gasped, her crimson eyes suddenly swinging their way.  
      “Is there any way I can help you?”  Tutu asked.  She took a step toward the weeping girl, forcing Mytho to release her, and he felt her absence keenly.  That _something_ screaming in his mind seemed to grow louder as she stepped away and he teetered in place as if on the verge of remembering what it was.  He reached for it, but couldn’t quite grasp the thought.  
      “Who is Krähe?” the girl whimpered while he was lost in his own head.  
     Princess Tutu stepped forward again, reaching out, and Mytho wasn’t sure if she was reaching to embrace the girl or save her, when suddenly the window behind Krähe exploded inward.  
     Chaos erupted in the room as glass went flying everywhere and someone—a very _insane_ and enraged someone—leapt through the shattered opening.  
     Tutu stumbled back, a startled exclamation on her lips and Mytho swung toward the newest threat.  His eyes widened when he took in the figure that emerged from the shadows.  “Fakhir?”  
     Fakhir landed between Tutu and Krähe, his eyes blazing, a large shard of broken glass clutched in one hand.  “Begone you ugly crow!” he shouted, advancing on the kneeling girl.  
      “Crow?” she gasped, her eyes riveted on the broken glass on the ground before her.  Krähe’s face which had been open and vulnerable, filled with confusion, twisted into an ugly sneer.  “That’s right.  I am a crow.”  She rose sinuously to her feet, all vulnerability gone now, and faced down Fakhir with a triumphant smile.  “And I alone am the true prima ballerina assoluta!  Princess Krähe!”  She struck a pose, her arms held out behind her, elbows bent and arms extended like a pair of black wings.  “And I will take what I want by force if need be!”  Winging those arms down violently, she twirled into a swirling wind of darkness and feathers, and disappeared.

***

     Chest heaving, Fakhir turned his rage onto the remaining occupants of the room.  He ignored Mytho, standing off to one side, and focused instead on the useless twit who’d allowed the crow to get so close to Mytho.  “Princess Tutu,” he spat at her.  “Will you not cease this restoring of his heart then?”  
     Her eyes grew in her face, huge and blue, and in them a spark of fire.  “No.  Because that is the Prince’s wish.”  
     He shook his head, trying to shake off his rage like a dog shedding water, but it didn’t work.  He advanced on the creature that was Princess Tutu, trying to figure out what her motivation was.  Her power.  How had she come by it?  Why?  Glass crunched under his feet as he crossed the room toward them.  Blood dripped from his palm, sliding down the shard he held to fall in crimson droplets on the floor.  More glass shook out of his sleeves, out of his hair.  He barely noticed any of it.  
      “Do you intend on shattering his heart again?” Tutu demanded, lifting her chin a bit.  She edged just ever so slightly between him and the Prince.  
     Fakhir found her maneuver amusing.  As if she thought she could stop him if he really tried something.  She was so tiny.  So frail.  _And so powerful,_ he had to remind himself.  He’d seen the evidence of her power himself in the swaths of destruction she’d left behind.  Whoever this girl really was, she had some secret magic at her command.  “If I do?” he asked, more to mock her than for any other reason.  
      “I won’t allow you to!” she growled back, trying for the role of fierce lioness.  She came off more as a hissing kitten.  
      “You’ll kill me then?” he scoffed, edging closer as if giving her the opportunity.  _That’s the only way you can stop me._   His eyes narrowed at her.  
     All the blood seemed to drain from Tutu’s face and she took an involuntary step backwards, reestablishing the space between them.  “What?”  
      “ _Could_ you kill?” he hissed.  He was close enough now he could smell her fear.  She had to tilt her chin back to see look him in the eye, her head only barely coming up to his nose.  He wondered at that a moment.  She bore a passing resemblance to that other girl… _Duck._   But Duck was shorter than this creature by several inches.  Still, she only barely came up to his chin.  
     She straightened up as if noticing the disparity in their height and trying to account for it.  “That’s not—”  
     Whatever she was going to say was lost because Fakhir struck out suddenly with the shard of glass, aiming for her throat.  
      “Stop!” Mytho cried out, jumping suddenly into action.  
     The sharp edge of the shard gashed toward Tutu’s pale skin and she flinched.  Her jerking motion brought her into content with the glass shard, scoring a thin red line on white skin just as the Prince jumped between them and forced Fakhir’s hand out of the way.  Fakhir felt a hot jolt of pain lance through him, marking his own throat and he almost dropped the bloody piece of glass.  He’d only wanted to scare the girl, but she’d used her power— _she must have_ —against him, and it fueled his rage.  He tried to push past Mytho toward her, but the Prince held him back with surprising strength.  
      “When the Raven stands before you, you strike!” Fakhir shouted over Mytho’s shoulder at the pale-faced Tutu.  “You can’t guard Mytho only by restoring his heart!”  
      “Fakhir!” Mytho’s voice rasped in his ear, full of admonishment.  
      “But Krähe was suffering,” Tutu whimpered, her hand on her neck.  A small bead of blood fell over one pale knuckle.  
      “Then that was your chance!” he raged at her, not even caring now that Mytho was still battling to hold him back.  “I would have finished her, and if it came down to it, I could even kill you too!”   
     All color drained from the girl’s face.  Fear filled her eyes.  More than fear—cold, stark terror.  
     Fakhir felt her terror like a punch to the chest and this time the glass did fall from his bloody hand.  He didn’t even feel the pain of his gashed palm over the suffocating pressure that pierced his chest.  A face flashed in his mind, like an old forgotten memory surfacing suddenly from its forgotten corner.   
     _Her face ran with rain like tears.  
_      _Dark curls of hair plastered to her neck.  
_      _An angel, weeping all alone…  
_      _…the most beautiful angel he’d ever seen…  
_      Something twisted inside of him like the pain of a knife twisting in an old wound and it stole his breath.  
      “Tutu, run!” Mytho called to her urgently, still struggling to hold Fakhir at bay.  
     But Fakhir wasn’t fighting him anymore.  He was dimly aware of Tutu fleeing the room, and the further she ran, the more that pain and pressure in his chest seemed to ease.   
      “Why must you hinder me from regaining my heart, Fakhir?” Mytho asked, still holding Fakhir’s shoulders.  But he wasn’t restraining his friend anymore.  He was holding him up.  
      “Hinder?” Fakhir heard his own voice croak.  He focused on the Prince with surprise.  He’d never seen Mytho like this before.  There was a look in his eyes, almost stern. Commanding.  _Like a real Prince.  
_       “I want to get my heart back,” he told Fakhir firmly.  “No matter what fate might await me.  I—”  
     Fakhir wasn’t listening to him.  His eyes had gone past the Prince again, toward the door Tutu had disappeared through.  The pain in his chest was gone now, but the memory of it remained.  Along with the memory of the hot jolt of pain on his neck when he’d sliced her skin.  _In the same place.  What the hell??_    
     That face in his mind.  Was it a delusion?  A trick?  Or a memory?  
     Mytho’s eyes narrowed on his face.  “You’re trembling, Fakhir,” he murmured.  “Why?”  
     Unable to answer.  Unwilling to do so even if he could, Fakhir pushed Mytho away and stepped past him.  
      “Your hand,” the Prince pointed out.  
     Fakhir looked down at it, at the blood welling out through the torn skin.  It looked deep but he didn’t care.  In a few weeks it would be just another scar.  He unknotted the white ascot at his throat and bound it around his hand almost absently as he followed the princess’s trail.  
      “Don’t hurt her, Fakhir.”  Mytho’s soft voice echoed behind him.  
     Fakhir froze, a sick feeling churning at the pit of his stomach.  He’d only wanted to scare her.  And yet he _had_ hurt her.  And he’d felt her pain himself.  He touched his neck.  _She_ did that to him.  
      “Please.”  
     The one word shattered something inside of him.  Fakhir didn’t answer.  He walked on, not caring about the broken window behind him.  Not caring about the unconscious girl, or Mytho standing there, or how any of it would look if a faculty member came along.  In a few minutes, an hour or so, maybe he’d care then.  But right now he needed to escape.  He needed to get away from whatever Tutu had done to him when he struck at her.  And he needed to shake the image of that face in the rain out of his head.  
     He stepped into the refreshingly cool air of the evening and turned his face up to the darkening sky, allowing the breeze to blow the treacherous thoughts and images from his mind.  When he lowered his chin at last, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, he saw a spark of light strike off something on the ground.  Bending to examine it, his eyes went wide.  “Is that…”  
     Fakhir lifted the delicate chain and held it up.  It was broken on one side, a link torn, but from the broken chain there dangled a familiar jewel.  He’d seen it somewhere but he couldn’t quite place the image of the red pendant.  It looked eerily similar to the collar of red jewels Tutu wore.  And then it hit him.  _Duck._   She wore a pendant like this.  And Tutu wore a pendant similar to it.  
     Could it be…?  
     Was this jewel the source of Tutu’s power?

 


	20. Der Junge, der ein Geheimnis bewahren konnte

**_The Boy Who Could Keep a Secret_ **

 

     The little white duck blinked blearily as morning sun slanted slowly over the quad from the peaks of the surrounding roofs.  Her black bill was tucked under one wing, the long grass that sheltered her makeshift bed serving to hide her from the stomping feet of students wandering to their classes.  She looked up and shook her head, struggling to remember the events of the day before.  
     _That’s right,_ she thought, _I returned a heart shard to the Prince.  Krähe was there and she wasn’t happy.  She tried to stop me.  And then Fakhir was there and he tried to stop her.  But why am I a duck?  
_      She got to her feet and shook herself, fluffy down shedding the dew that had settled on her.  She kicked her long, gangly, grey legs against the grass and yawned widely.  _The pendant._   With alarm, she looked down, but the pendant was gone.  She’d lost it.  The chain must have been cut when Fakhir slashed at Tutu.  And then Tutu had fled from the art school… and turned into a duck.  
     The duck looked around, suddenly frantic as everything came back to her.  She’d never changed from Tutu to a duck before.  The shock of the change had knocked her unconscious, and she’d woken in the night.  She’d waddled down to the water but it hadn’t changed her back.  That’s when she discovered the missing pendant and she’d returned here to find it.  But she couldn’t find it in the dark.  It was daylight now but the little duck didn’t see any sign of it.  She must have fallen asleep.  
     _Stupid, stupid duck!  
_      Anyone could have picked up the pendant.  Without the pendant she couldn’t turn into a girl.  She couldn’t turn into Tutu.  She was trapped as a duck.  She couldn’t help the Prince.  She couldn’t save Mytho!  Panic pressed in on her and she felt about ready to fly apart.  
      “Where are you Princess Tutu?” a familiar voice sounded high above her.  
     The little duck spun in place and looked up.  And up.  And up.  _Fakhir._ He was standing on the edge of the walkway, dark green eyes narrowed fiercely on nothing and everything at once.  The hard, unforgiving lines of his face looked sharp enough to cut glass, and tension poured off him in palpable waves.  She squawked in alarm, backpedaling out of her makeshift bed by the walkway, panic and fear thrumming through her.  
     Fakhir’s eyes focused in on her at once, and everything about his fierce expression softened.  “Hey,” he murmured.  “I recognize you.”  
     He crouched down so that she wasn’t craning up to see him, and the little duck found herself frozen in place.  She’d never seen Fakhir look so … unguarded before.  
      “You’re the duck from the other day, aren’t you?”  
     Even his _voice_ was different.  It was soft, and soothing, and almost … happy.  She stared up at him, eyes huge in her face.  
      “I’ve never seen a duck with blue eyes before,” he muttered to himself.  He reached out with one hand.  Instinctively, the little duck flinched back and Fakhir froze, hand still extended.  “I won’t hurt you,” he promised.  
     The very sound of those words coming out of his mouth had her bill dropping open in shock.  She didn’t have the presence of mind to move away as he reached for her again, and then he was stroking the top of her fluffy head with one gentle finger.  
      “I guess you didn’t find your parents,” he murmured, the happiness gone.  Now he sounded sad.  His voice dropped low as if imparting a secret that only they shared.  “I didn’t find mine either.”   
     At that moment, the little duck could have been knocked over by a feather.  Was Fakhir actually _talking_ to her?  Telling her _secrets_?  And then her muddled mind registered what he’d said.  _“What happened to your parents?”_ she found herself asking in the language of birds.  But of course, Fakhir didn’t speak the avian tongue.  
      “You must be hungry,” he said, pulling his hand away from her and she realized with alarm that she missed the soothing touch.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll.  There was a soft clink and they both looked at the thing that had fallen out alongside the bread.  
     _The pendant!  
_      Her eyes went from the pendant, to Fakhir, and back again.  Where did he get it?  “Quack!” she squawked in surprise, jumping forward.  Fakhir had retrieved the pendant, its golden chain dangling from his hand, and she grabbed it with her bill and immediately started to tug as if her meager bird strength could rival his.  
      “Hold on there!” he laughed.  _Laughed!!_  “That isn’t food.”  He tugged the chain gently away and it slipped from her mouth.  With his other hand he crumbled the roll up and spread it out on the grass before her.  
     The little duck looked at the crumbs, then up at the chain that still dangled over her head just out of reach.  Then back at the crumbs, then again up at the chain.  She blinked once and then hopped up and caught the chain, and to her surprise, he dropped his hand so she wasn’t dangling in the air.  
      “What’s this?” he asked.  “Have you taken a liking to this little thing?”  
     She paused, the chain still in her bill, and looked up at him.  What was that expression on his face?   
     He cocked his head at her and his features gentled into a tenderness made more strange for the sake of the one who wore it.  “I do envy your innocence,” he murmured.  
     So surprised by that show of vulnerability was she, that the little duck dropped the chain.  Fakhir tucked the pendant back away, and reached with his other hand to pet her head one more time.   
      “Enjoy your breakfast, little one,” he told her.  “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”  With that he stood up, looked around one more time, and strode away on long legs.   
     There was no way she was going to be able to keep up with him, but she needed that pendant!  She started to follow then stopped.  _I don’t have to keep up with him, do I?  I know where he’s going to be._   Wait, what day was it?  Wednesday?  Thursday?  He should be heading for practice now.  It didn’t matter what day it was.  Ballet students danced every day and Fakhir never missed class.  Which meant she had time.  She could follow him there.  He’d have to change clothes to dance, which means the pendant would be in his locker.   
     She had time.  
     Her stomach rumbled its discomfort, and her eyes went to the tasty crumbs he’d laid out for her.  _There’s nothing wrong with eating something._   She told herself, remembering she’d had no dinner the night before.   
     After finishing off the roll, the little white duck started across campus toward the ballet school.  The students were all in classes now, which made the walking a little safer.  Still, she kept close to the buildings, and it took a long time for her to work her way around to the door that led into the downstairs of the ballet school.  
     Music filtered down from the practice room, and out of the studios around her.  She wondered which studio Fakhir was in, but it didn’t matter.  As long as he wasn’t in the locker room.  She thanked her lucky stars that boys were slobs when she reached the door and found it slightly ajar and definitely unlatched.  She nosed it open with her bill and slipped inside, going straight for Fakhir’s locker this time now that she knew where it was.  
     She reached a dilemma when she arrived at the locker, because while boys may be slobs Fakhir clearly wasn’t and it was definitely closed tight with no way of opening it.  Pacing in front of it, her little duck mind turned the problem over and over.  She leaned down and peered up, noting a gap in the locker at the bottom.  It wasn’t quite enough for her to squeeze through, but if she could find something to pry it open, then maybe…  
     Her eyes went around the room.  If this was the girl’s locker room there’d be hairpins and other sundry items scattered all over the place.  Since it wasn’t, she had nothing immediately at hand, or wing, or bill, or … whatever.  She groaned in frustration, and then startled in alarm when she heard the door open behind her. Darting under a bench, she crouched down and pretended to be invisible hoping it would work.  
     Fakhir came in, dressed in his black tights and shirt, and the little duck felt her heart drop down to her little webbed feet.  He was _wearing_ the pendant.  
      “I don’t know.”  
     Another familiar voice cut in, and the little duck could see Mytho walking in behind him.  
     _Crap!_ She must have misjudged the time.  Which meant class was over and she was _definitely_ going to be found in here.  
      “I’d say so,” a third familiar voice, and the little duck saw Femio.  “Just from the way you danced today.”  
      “As if that has anything to do with it,” a fourth danseur scoffed, following in on their heels.   
      “You don’t think love shows itself in the dance?” Femio returned.  
      “I can dance circles around all of you,” the unfamiliar danseur responded, “and it sure isn’t because I’m in _love._ ”  
     A locker slammed shut, startling all of them, and the little duck swung her head around to see Fakhir.  He was leaning against his closed locker, head down, shoulders tense.  “Will you all just _shut up!_ ” he demanded.  
     Silence reigned.  
      “Fakhir—” Mytho’s voice.  
      “Save it,” Fakhir snapped.  He opened the locker, reached in and grabbed a towel, then slammed it shut again.  His eyes cut to the unfamiliar danseur.  “Tell Mr. Catt I’ll be in the small studio, I have to practice the choreography for Hilarion.”  
      “But what about—”  
      “I don’t give a damn about Latin.  Professor von Igel knows I’m chapters ahead, I won’t miss anything.”  He said all this on his way to the door, and then he was gone.  
     The boys in the locker room all traded loaded looks, and the little duck took advantage of their distraction to dart out from under the bench and follow Fakhir just before the door swung shut behind him.  He was already to the small studio, and she had to run as fast as her legs could carry her to dodge through before _that_ door also swung shut with more force than necessary.  
     Without looking, Fakhir tossed his towel on the ground and it landed right on her head.  Her legs buckled under its weight, and it took some shaking and shifting to squirm out from under it.  She managed to get her head free just as music began to flow from the gramophone on the far side of the room.  
     She looked across the studio to see Fakhir standing in the middle of the floor facing the wall of mirrors.  His head was down again, chest heaving.  He seemed to be fighting some sort of epic internal battle and for some reason that made her heart ache.  She’d never seen him like this, right on the edge of control.  
      “Damn it!” he swore, as the music swelled around him.  He turned away from the mirrors, running a hand through his hair.  “Mytho, you really don’t know anything about what regaining your heart will cost.”  
     _Cost?  
_      Fakhir continued to just stand there as the music drifted around him.  
     _What will regaining his heart cost?_ The little duck wondered.  _What secrets are you hiding, Fakhir?  
_      He didn’t say anything else though.  The song finished and the record started to hum.  Fakhir crossed back to it and almost absently lifted the needle and started to return it, but he paused.  He lifted the record off the player and looked at it, shaking his head.  He set it aside, took a different record, and put it in place.  The new music that issued from the trumpet wasn’t familiar to her.  It was achingly lonely, slow and sad.  Fakhir took a few steps into the center of the floor… and then he started to dance.  
     The little duck watched in awe, blue eyes wide.  She’d seen Mytho dance before.  She’d seen Rue dance.  Both were beautiful, poised and graceful, perfect precision and flawless technique.  Beautiful wasn’t a word she could use to describe Fakhir’s dance.  It was too raw to be beautiful.  Too exposed.  Like a gaping wound on display.  He moved like madness contained.  Like caged fire.  At first controlled and then unfettered, measured and then unbridled.  As the tempo of the song increased, so too did his movements.  He leapt and twirled in a masterful display of strength and acrobatics.  It was like watching stars collide, or storms surge into ocean waves.   
     The song began to slow and he fell out of step, hands on his hip as he took several paces in the middle of the floor, breathing heavily.  He reached for the hem of his black shirt and pulled it off over his head, tossing it in the direction of his towel.  It landed several feet from her in a heavy lump, and the little duck’s bill dropped open at the sight of his naked torso.  Distantly she registered the powerful arms and sculpted muscles—so different from the long lean lines of the other danseurs—which betrayed some sort of heavy work outside the walls of the ballet studio.  But what caught her eyes was the long, jagged mark which laced up his back, over his left shoulder, and across his chest marring the otherwise masculine perfection.  It was several inches wide and shone pale against his olive skin.  Her pendant winked like a drop of blood against the mark.  
     _Is that a scar?_ she wondered, feeling pain slice through her own chest at the thought of so much damage.  She wasn’t sure.  Maybe it was a birthmark?  She found herself hoping that was the case.  She never wanted to imagine what might have happened to mark a person with a scar like that.  
     The song suddenly picked up again and she realized it wasn’t over, just a temporary lull.  The frenzy that filled Fakhir’s movements now was even more pronounced than before.  He was a madman, dancing without any reserve, pouring everything he had into the steps, and the sight of it took her breath away.  There was so much power, so much rage, so much _pain_ that it almost hurt to watch.  He was the epitome of bottled fury and frustration, the very visualization of an unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object.  He leapt once, twice, three times, twisting in the air as if he might sprout wings and fly out of his own mortal sinew.  The little duck half expected those wings to take form, and then Fakhir landed—dangerously close to the mirrors—stumbled a step toward the wall of glass, and pounded a fist into his own reflection.   
     She jumped at the sound of shattering glass.  Fractures spiderwebbed out from his hand from floor to ceiling as the song died away into silence, and when he stepped back from the glass she saw he left his blood behind.  
      “Why can’t I remember her?” he muttered cryptically, and the hoarse sound of pain in his voice sliced through her.  “Why can’t I forget?”  
     She swallowed back the taste of sickness and took a step away from the towel that shielded her, feeling somehow compelled toward him.  She ached to comfort him and couldn’t understand _why.  
_      Before she could take more than a few steps, the window of the practice room slanted open and a loud caw pulled both their attention to a heavy-bodied crow sitting on the sill.  
     Fakhir tensed, all vulnerability washed from his face.  
     The crow cawed again and took to wing.  
     Cautiously, Fakhir crossed the studio.  He lifted the needle off the spinning record, and then reached for the windowsill, retrieving what looked like a card.  
     _Did the crow deliver it?  
_      Whatever it said made Fakhir curse violently.  “Blasted Krähe!” he burst out, flinging the card away from him with such force that it skidded across the studio to within inches of her feet.  “Is this to say that she doesn’t see me as a threat?”  
     His rage was a palpable thing that filled the room, hot and thick, and the little duck flinched as he returned to the shattered mirror and pounded another impotent fist into it, shards of glass flying loose this time.  The third time he struck the wall she realized what it was that had carved those muscles.   
     Violence.  
     Fakhir seemed completely unaffected by the blood dripping from his knuckles and turned away, running both hands through his hair and filling the room with curses.  Sidling almost fearfully up to the card, she looked down.  She gazed at it, wondering what could enraged Fakhir so violently.  It was a black card covered in gilt writing, the sort of loopy, swirly stuff that was almost impossible for her to read.  She tried, but the words swam around her head.  
      “Mytho and Krähe’s wedding,” Fakhir muttered, bracing his hands against the table and bending over the gramophone in a way that made her fear for its future.   
     Her heart froze.  _Wedding?_  
     Fakhir’s head came up and his expression was fierce enough to make the devil run and hide in the depths of Abaddon.  “What the hell are you up to, Crow?”

***

     The sun had slanted behind the city walls, long shadows stretching across the streets, as Fakhir stood outside the old guardhouse near the town’s northeastern gate.  Above the old guardhouse swung a sign reading _Schmeid,_ and Fakhir stared at it for a long time while he gathered his courage to walk inside.  Memories bombarded him and he closed his eyes against the reminder of a life he _could_ have had.  
     _“This mark of yours is the same that is in the legend which has been passed down among our people,” Kyron told his young charge while he buttoned the boy’s shirt.  “I’m sure you’ll grow to be strong.  It’s a sign that you’re the reincarnation of a brave knight who protected a prince.”  
_      He absentmindedly ran a hand down his chest, over the mark which he’d worn for as long as he could remember.  There had been a time when the other boys in town had teased him for it, bullying him mercilessly.  But in time, the mark had become a source of pride.  
     _“If it was to protect the people,” the boy read from the storybook Kyron had given him, “the Prince never feared to be injured in the line of duty.”  He lowered the book and looked up at his guardian who was smiling kindly down at him as he read.  “Wow, that’s great!”  
_       “And then my destiny was suddenly set in motion,” Fakhir muttered darkly to himself.  
     _It wasn’t a long walk to the smithy from the schoolhouse and Kyron always offered to walk him there and back.  The boy knew why of course.  He almost always came home with blood on his face or dirt on his clothes from the other kids.  But he didn’t want Kyron to fight his battles for him.  It wasn’t what his father would have done.  He hugged his books to his chest and hurried from the schoolhouse, wiping blood from his face and hoping Kyron wouldn’t notice it.  Then he froze.  A few paces away a man was sitting on the ground, his back leaned against a shop, and his eyes were closed.  He was gaunt and pale, dressed in rags, and next to him lay a sword.  At first the boy thought he was dead.  Then he saw the shallow rise and fall of the man’s chest.  
_      _The boy dropped his books and ran the short distance to the smithy, calling for Kyron.  His guardian appeared, looking worried.  “Are you alright Fakhir?” he asked, “Are you hurt?”  
_      _“Not me,” the boy explained quickly, describing the man.  
_      _Kyron followed him down the street and told him to stand back as he knelt beside the man.  There was a look in his guardian’s eyes he didn’t recognize.  “Sire?” he whispered, then he shook his head as if he couldn’t remember something.  He bent forward, listening for the man’s heartbeat.  He put a hand to his neck to feel for his pulse, then Kyron turned.  “I’m sorry Fakhir, he’s…”  
_      _The man’s eyes flickered open.  
_      _Kyron swore.  “The Prince who had lost his heart… mythos.”  
_      _“Mee-thos,” the boy drawled.  “Is that his name?”  
_      _Kyron shook his head, “Mythos means story, a sacred belief or idea, from the Greek muthos.”  He spoke these words almost as an afterthought, as if his mind were somewhere else.  
_      _“Me-u-to,” the boy tried out the new word.  “Mytho!” he exclaimed, “That’s what I’ll call him.”  
_      Fakhir closed his eyes against the memory.  “Mytho had no emotions,” he recalled, “but whenever he saw something weak suffering, no matter the danger, he would rush to try and protect it.”   
     He remembered the day that had changed everything.  A house down the street had been on fire, and there was a cage of birds hanging out the second story window.  Mytho had rushed into the fire to save the birds and he’d fallen from the window.  
     _“Stupid,” the boy said to Mytho who was laying in bed with his injuries bandaged.  “You don’t think do you?  You do useless things like that.”  
_      _“I’m sorry,” he apologized tonelessly.  
_      _The boy got mad.  He remembered seeing Mytho fall.  He remembered being scared for his friend.  The_ only _friend he had aside from Kyron.  He remembered the bookmen’s rage when they found out about Mytho, and found out that the boy had almost let him be burned alive.  He remembered the beating he’d gotten for his carelessness.  “Forget helping other people!  You just listen to what I tell you.  From now on I’ll be protecting you.”  
_       “And I will.”  
     Fakhir eyed the smithy, pushing the memories away, and drew himself up.  He strode across the street and entered through the shop entrance.  Shadows filled the room, a light from the back casting weird patterns through the weapons and armor that crowded the shop.  Fakhir walked through the maze unheeding of the ancient armament.  So focused was he on his mission that he failed to notice the little white duck dogging his steps.  
     Kyron made his living forging wagon wheels, axles, pots, pans, and utilitarian knives.  The collection of arms and armor had puzzled Fakhir when he was boy, before he understood the curse, before he understood that there was more happening in Goldkrone Towne than could be explained.  Now he barely noticed it.  
     He stepped through the last of the rows of armor and into the workspace at the back.  Kyron sat at a worktable sharpening an axe.  Like all the others he hadn’t changed in the fifteen years Fakhir had known him.  His careworn face was the same age—somewhere north of thirty and south of forty.  His sandy hair was rumpled, and his big solid frame was bowed under years of labor.   
      “Kyron,” Fakhir greeted.  
     The man’s blue eyes raised from the axe, “Fakhir?”  He seemed startled to see his charge here.  
     Fakhir wasn’t surprised by that.  He’d barely seen the man who’d raised him since the day he’d left to study at Gold Crown with Mytho.  He remembered the argument they’d had over that.  He’d never been able to tell Kyron about the bookmen or the curse.  He knew the smith would never believe him.  And now those years of silence gaped between them.  He folded his arms over his chest, “Where’s the sword?”  
      “You haven’t been home for ages, yet no greetings for me?” a ragged edge of pain lined his voice.  Kyron stood from the worktable and turned away.  “There are plenty of swords in the shop.”  
      “No.”  Fakhir’s own tone was harsh.  “ _That_ sword.”  He forced himself to uncross his arms, letting his hands dangle at his sides.  “The Lohengrin sword.”  _My father’s sword.  
_      Kyron’s back stiffened.  
     Fakhir stepped into the room, walking around the worktable to face Kyron.  “I have need of it.  I have to protect Mytho from the crows,” his hands were now fists at his sides.  
     Kyron’s shoulders slumped forward and his face betrayed a terrible grief.  “I can’t give it to you.”  
     Fakhir’s muscles went taut.  “What?”  
      “You know that sword is meant for the knight,” Kyron sighed, sounding regretful.  
      “You promised you would let me have it!” Fakhir shouted.  _It’s my birthright,_ he thought but didn’t say.  Kyron had no idea who Fakhir’s father was.  No one did.  
      “That was when you were a child,” the smith retorted.  But he sounded resigned.  
     Fakhir glared down at him, noting only in passing that in the years he’d been gone he’d outgrown his old guardian by several inches.  Kyron still hadn’t looked at him except for that first brief glance when he entered.  “Mytho has been regaining his heart—”  
     Now Kyron looked at him, and the expression on his face was frightened.  
      “And Princess Tutu has already appeared,” Fakhir went on.  “The crows are returning as well.  The legend you told me about as a child is swiftly becoming reality.  If so, this means that I am the knight from the story reborn.”  He leaned toward the older man, “If I’m the knight I should be allowed to use the Lohengrin sword.”  
      “Fakhir,” Kyron sighed, running a weary hand through his hair, “Why can’t you just leave Mytho be?”  
      “Leave him be?” Fakhir shook his head in bewilderment.  Hadn’t Kyron heard anything he just said?  
     A shadow entered Kyron’s eyes.  “You would be much better off forgetting this accursed tale.”  
      “It’s too late to be saying things like that,” Fakhir snarled.  “It was on the same day you took me in, the day my parents were buried, that you told me this tale!  Remember!?”  
     Kyron nodded.  “I remember.”  He didn’t sound happy about it.  
      “I will protect Mytho,” Fakhir vowed again, “That was the promise I made.”  
     Kyron’s weariness turned suddenly to rage.  “This fool’s errand that you’re attempting now is not for Mytho’s sake!  It’s for your own sake, isn’t it Fakhir?”  
     He flinched back from the words, stung.  “What?”  
     Kyron advanced, closing the distance between them.  “The time to fight is drawing closer, are you sure you’re not afraid of sharing in the same wretched fate as the knight in the story?”  
     Fakhir’s face went white, “I’m not.”  
     Kyron didn’t seem to hear him, he continued to advance, forcing Fakhir to retreat.  “You kept calling the Prince a good-for-nothing to make sure that his heart wouldn’t be restored.  Knowing he loved to dance you enrolled him at the Academy to keep him busy.  You were too afraid to fight!” he accused.  
      “No!” Fakhir cried out in frustration.  Kyron didn’t _know._ Nobody knew how much Fakhir had sacrificed for the Prince.  
     But Kyron wasn’t finished saying his piece, “There’s no way that you’ll protect Mytho the way you are now.”  
      “Stop it!” Fakhir cried, and he hated the way his voice sounded as he said it.  Like a child wanting the monsters to go away.  
      “Just give it up!” Wash your hands of this!”  
      “Enough!” Fakhir growled out, regaining himself.  He reached out blindly and grabbed a rapier off the wall.  “Any sword will do.”  
     Kyron lunged out suddenly, swinging a heavy hand that caught Fakhir across the cheek.  The force of the blow and the surprise sent him reeling aside and he crashed into the wall, the rapier falling from his hand.  “This ends now!” Kyron shouted, “Do you understand?”  
     Fakhir pressed his palm to his face, staring at Kyron with wide eyes.  In fifteen years the smith had never once raised a hand against him.  The surprise of the blow more than the pain of it cut into him.  “Yes,” he hissed, and Kyron began to relax thinking he’d agreed.  The smith stiffened again at his next words, “I may be afraid of risking my life just as you accused me, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it.”  Distantly, he was aware of a warm heat against his chest, but his focus was on Kyron, and he realized suddenly just how old his guardian appeared.  
     Fakhir pushed away from the wall and stalked from the room.  He didn’t turn back, so he didn’t see the look on Kyron’s face as if the smith’s heart had just been ripped out of his chest.  He heard the old man call out after him, but he still didn’t turn back.  So he didn’t see Kyron drop to his knees, a broken man.  He didn’t look back because he didn’t want Kyron to see the tears stinging his own eyes.  
     Fakhir rushed from the smithy, fleeing through the darkness to the little green space by the town wall that had once been his own personal refuge.  A bit of a pond glittered in the moonlight there, its surface dappled with lily pads.  He braced his back against a tree, the tears falling freely down his cheeks now, hate battling with heartbreak in his chest.  
     He _hated_ the man who’d hurt his mother, who made her beg.  He _hated_ the townswomen for calling his mother a witch and a whore.  He _hated_ the kids who pushed him and beat him and called him weak and poor.  He _hated_ the bookmen for treating him like nothing more than a tool to be sharpened.  He hated Mytho for being useless, for being vacant, for always being there but never _being_ there.  He hated Tutu for bungling in and changing everything.  He hated his father for always being away fighting someone else’s war.  For dying.  He hated Kyron for withholding his birthright.  For making him feel this way.  And he hated himself for caring too much to really _hate_ any of it.  But most of all he hated his own weakness for crying.

***

     Hidden in the shadows beneath a leafy bush at the far edge of the pond, the little duck peered up at Fakhir, feeling her own tiny heart breaking.  She’d borne silent witness to the entire exchange inside the smithy, and while she hadn’t understood everything that had passed between the two men, she’d understood enough.  _I don’t know anymore,_ she thought miserably.  _What’s right?  What’s wrong?  The only thing I can tell is Fakhir isn’t lying.  I didn’t see it, but this whole time Fakhir has been just like me._   She shook her downy head morosely.  _No, he might care about Mytho even more than I do.  
_      She stepped into the water at the far edge of the pool and paddled into the circle of moonlight that lit the small clearing of grass and trees.   
     The sound of the water stirred Fakhir from whatever hell he’d been inside, and his eyes opened and focused on the pond.  Some of the tension left his face.  “Oh it’s you,” he murmured, his voice hoarse.  He offered a shaky smile, “You’ve kind of caught me at a bad moment.”  
     _I know,_ she thought to herself, feeling like a fool and an intruder.  She flapped her little wings to shed water and stepped up onto the shore in front of Fakhir.  She took a few tentative steps toward him.  The moonlight shone on his face, sparking rainbows off the tears still drying there and for the first time since she’d known him she saw the ravaged, broken beauty of this soul she’d so completely misjudged.  A soft sound caught in her throat.  
      “You’re crying?” he queried, bending down to see her better.  “For my sake?”  On his knees now, he held out his hands.  
     Without even thinking about it, without even considering any of the consequences, the little white duck hopped up into his outstretched palms.   
     Fakhir lifted her up, cradling her close to his heart and stroked one finger across the top of her head.  “Don’t cry for me,” he whispered softly, even as another errant tear streaked down his cheek.  
     The little duck watched the tear fall, feeling the crack in her chest widening further and further, and wished with all her little downy might that she could take all of his heartbreak into herself.  Something warmed inside her, some small spark of a thing she had no name for, and somewhere in a distant limbo a shadowy spirit howled in frustrated rage.  Fakhir’s hands closed around her and he pressed her closer into him.  His grip, though firm, was still somehow so gentle as if he were acutely aware of the fragile creature in his hands.  
     She felt _safe_ there, nestled against Fakhir’s heart, listening to the ragged sound of his breathing as he struggled for control.  She felt that warm thing inside herself grow as his calm slowly returned and his turmoil settled.  She felt … different.  As if she were somehow outside of herself, free, capable, strong … _powerful.  
_      Then just as he’d picked her up, Fakhir set her down.  She blinked up at him, surprised by the sudden change.  The suffering was gone from his face, and the smile he offered her now was genuine.  “Thank you,” he whispered as if she’d given him something precious.  He tapped one finger to the end of her black bill, and then reached around his neck and unclasped the chain that hung there.   
      “Quack?” she questioned as he extracted the pendant from the front of his shirt and laid it down at her feet.  
      “Take it,” he told her.  “You wanted it, didn’t you?”  
     She looked down at the gem, and then back up at him.  He wasn’t looking at her anymore though.  He was looking past her, into the darkness, and there was a decision in his eyes.  He rose to his feet and then he was gone.  The little duck turned her attention back to the gem, lowered her downy head, and looped the chain around her neck.  
     Instantly the golden sensation of transformation washed over her and she was Tutu.  The princess knelt in the circle of moonlight where Fakhir had stood.  _Where Fakhir had wept._   Tears stung at her eyes and she closed a hand over the heavy collar of rubies at her throat.  Instantly she felt the warmth of the jewels and her eyes went wide as she remembered the flash of light she’d seen at the smithy.   
      “There’s a shard at Mr. Kyron’s house.”  _Maybe… maybe I can fix something for Fakhir._

 


	21. Der Prinz und Der Rabe

**_The Prince and the Raven_ **

           

 _Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom there lived a brave and handsome prince.  But it was not his courage nor his beauty that the Prince was most known for amongst his people.  It was his kindness.  For the Prince was blessed upon the day of his birth that he was forever fated to protect all the subjects under his rule, and all the meek, and all those weaker than himself.  It was a double-edged blessing, for he was fated to do thus even at the cost of his own life.  To guard the Prince from the consequences of this fate, the King assigned his own Knight to protect and instruct the young Prince in the various arts of combat.  This too was double-edged, for the stronger the Prince became, the greater too did the number of those he was fated to protect._  
_Fortune favored the Prince, and for many years his kingdom and all the surrounding lands existed in peace and prosperity.  Though turbulence boiled in the world outside the borders of the land, his people continued to flourish.  And when war was visited upon them, the Prince and his father’s knights were able to stand against it and protect their people.  And when Great War fell over all the lands, the Prince and the King’s own Knight fearlessly rode out together to meet it.  For if it was to protect his people, the Prince never feared to be injured in the line of duty._  
_After vanquishing a terrible evil which rode under the banner of a great black bird, the Prince was called home from his travels on word that the King and Queen had met with awful tragedy.  While out driving, the royal carriage had come to disaster upon the edge of a seaside cliff.  The Court’s adviser informed the Prince that the deaths of his parents was marked by the arrival of a raven.  It was the raven which spooked the horses into plunging off the road and into the sea._  
_So distraught was the Prince that he swore vengeance upon the Raven and a reward was posted to any who could deliver him the body of the bird which had killed the King and Queen.  Many adventurers joined the cause in hopes of great riches but none were able to capture the great black creature.  Those who’d managed to catch sight of the bird claimed that it was crafty and cunning, and very intelligent.  The King’s own Knight and his men each attempted to find the bird.  Each failed._  
_Time went by and still no one was able to produce the body of the Raven, nor even to discover the black bird’s whereabouts.  So the Prince decided he had to do it for himself.  He left the kingdom with nothing but anger in his heart.  After many months of travelling across the lands he came across a small village deep in the black forest, and weary from travel, decided to stay the night.  Though the village was small and very remote, the Prince found great fortune dwelt amongst its people.  Crops grown there produced more than he’d ever seen.  Game was far more abundant and easily caught then he’d ever known.  And the town was filled with young, healthy, beautiful peasants._  
_Impelled by curiosity, the Prince inquired as to the village’s strange fortune.  The village elder said that it had not always been so.  Once there was hunger and disease, but all that had gone with the arrival of a proud raven who lived deep in the black forest.  Upon finding that a raven was the source of the village’s good fortune and that its arrival coincided with the date of his parent’s deaths, the Prince immediately became suspicious and asked after the bird’s location._  
_He was told that it lived in a giant oak down by the river, and was warned that he should not approach it for in that very same wood there dwells a faery princess and everyone knows you should never tangle with faeries.  The Prince asked why a faery would live in the wood rather than her own land, and an old storyteller answered that though she was blessed with beauty, cleverness, and strength, she is fated never to be with her prince.  Should she ever confess her love she will turn into a speck of light and vanish, and so she made the woods by the river her exile._  
_The Prince did not heed the warning, and the next morning he got upon his steed and rode toward the river looking for a large oak tree.  He found no such tree and was growing frustrated by the search as the day grew late.  He cried out in his anger, “Cowardly Raven, why will you not face me?”_  
_A voice overhead answered his cry, “Why do you seek the Raven?”_  
_Alarmed, the Prince peered around but could not spot the source of the voice.  “It killed my parents,” he explained._  
_“So you seek vengeance?” the voice came again._  
_Still searching in vain for the source of the voice, the Prince answered, “Yes.”_  
_“Then you should turn back,” counseled the voice.  “For if you face the Raven with anger in your heart you will be vanquished.”_  
_“And how can I trust that you are not the Raven seeking only to protect yourself?” the Prince demanded._  
_A small shimmering light appeared through the branches of the tree.  “I am no Raven, my Prince,” the voice spoke from out the light, and the Prince recognized that this creature must be the faery princess he was warned of._  
_He drew his sword, “I was told not to trust you.”_  
_“It is the villagers you should not trust.  For their fortune comes at a terrible price.  To buy the Raven’s favor they sacrificed their most virtuous daughter.  You can save her if you dare.  The Raven you seek dwells in yon great oak tree.  If you wish to save the girl, cut your hand upon your sword and drop your blood on the roots of the tree.  If you wish to kill the Raven, knock thrice upon its bark and call my name.  Choose wisely though, for you can only perform one task or the other.”_  
_At these words the shimmering light started to fade and the Prince, entranced by the beauty of that light, tried to chase after it not desiring it to vanish.  Instead of finding the faery he found himself instead standing before a giant oak tree._  
_“Wait!” he cried out as the light began to disappear.  “What name should I call?”_  
_A tiny voice echoed back on the lightest of winds, “Tutu.”_  
_Then the light disappeared and the Prince was left standing before the great oak tree.  If the faery spoke the truth then the people of the village had deceived him.  If the villagers spoke the truth, then it was the faery who had lied.  If he knocked upon the bark of the tree, the Raven might appear to be slain.  If he dropped his blood on its roots, he might save some hapless victim of the demon bird.  Too many questions filled his head and he stood undecided before the vast oak._  
_“Please, my Prince, turn away from this quest.”_  
_The Prince looked in alarm to see that his friend, the King’s own Knight had followed him along with a squire.  “What are you doing here?” he demanded._  
_“I could not let you go out from the castle without protection,” replied the Knight.  “It is my duty to serve your family, and you are the last.”_  
_“Then draw your bow,” the Prince ordered, “and help me kill this Raven.”_  
_“My Prince,” the Knight beseeched, “I heard the counsel you received.  If you fight this Raven with anger in your heart you might be killed.”_  
_“And there will be nothing but anger in my heart until the Raven is destroyed,” the Prince replied.  “If I am killed then the Raven will die with me and so too will my anger.”_  
_“Would you really choose to kill your enemy over saving a helpless girl?  Are you not bound to protect the weak?”_  
_This angered the Prince further for he knew the Knight was right.  If the girl was real, then failing to save her might cost him his own life._  
_The Knight stepped toward him, “I will not let you,” he said, and before the Prince could react, he gripped the Prince’s hand and used his own great blade to slice his palm.  Three drops of blood immediately fell upon the earth and a great crack was heard._  
_“What have you done!?” the Prince cried._  
_But before any of them could react, the bark of the tree broke open, and a beautiful girl with hair the color of the Raven’s wing fell out of it to land in a broken heap at the Prince’s feet.  A great roaring was heard from the crown of the tree and the Raven appeared._  
_“Take the girl!” the Knight ordered his squire as he drew forth his bow and fired upon the bird._  
_The Prince gazed at last upon his enemy.  The demon was more than his nightmares had made it to be.  It was a great black creature with wings as wide as a windmill’s sails, and beak as long and sharp as a fisherman’s harpoon.  It screeched its defiance from the crown of the oak and dove down upon the Prince and the Knight.  The Prince swung his sword with great speed, but faster was the Raven.  A dance macabre began as the Prince dodged, darted, and danced trying vainly to kill the black shadow of bird.  Whenever the Raven flew away the Knight would attempt to down it with arrows, but to no avail for the Raven would also dodge and dive and dart among the two._  
_The fight proceeded finally until the Raven dove upon the Prince, claws extended, ready to strike a fatal blow.  But the Knight, true to his duty and to his death and without landing even a single blow upon the body of the bird, threw himself before the Prince and was torn in two.  The Prince was enraged by the death of his friend, and he grasped the Raven by one ebon wing.  The Raven plunged its beak toward the Prince’s heart.  The Prince plunged his sword toward the Raven’s breast.  Tangled together, the two drove at each other.  The Prince’s blade proved faster than Raven’s beak.  He plunged his sword deep into the Raven’s heart._  
_In a burst of shadow and feather the Raven flew apart and a million crows sprang to life from its shattered shards.  Cawing and croaking they took to the air, and with wings pumping, eyes flashing, and bright beaks hungering for blood they soared into the sky.  The Prince watched, horrified, as the murder of crows turned their flight toward his kingdom and his people._  
_“What have I done?” he murmured in horror as the crows filled the heavens, their heavy bodies blocking out the sun and turning day to night._  
_The Raven’s spectral cackle filled his ears.  
_ _The Prince’s eyes went to his sword and he remembered his blessing and curse:  That he could forever protect his people and all those weaker than himself … at the cost of his own life.  Knowing it was forbidden to take one’s own life, but that doing so might save thousands, the Prince knelt and placed the tip of his sword against his heart.  If he shattered his heart, he could seal the Raven and all its evil away.  The Raven gave a spectral roar, and the Prince threw himself forward onto his sword._

In the shadowy depths of the Antiquariat, Fakhir flipped the pages of Drosselmeyer’s book in disgust.  Though it didn’t say what happened next, he knew.  The storyteller had died writing these very words, and when he did his characters escaped the pages still fighting their battle.  The crows of the story descended on the town, attacking and killing indiscriminately.  Many had died, including his parents.  And then the Prince shattered his heart, the Raven was sealed away, and Goldkrone Towne became part of the curse.   
If Princess Tutu somehow managed to restore the shards of the Prince’s heart, the curse would be lifted, the Raven and its army of crows would return, and the streets would run with rivers of blood.  When the Prince was nothing but a character from a story, it seemed a simple matter of logic that the curse should remain.  But Mytho was _real._   And he wanted his heart restored.  _If_ that happened, the battle would begin again.  
Fakhir blew out a breath. _A book is not a thing to be feared.  Turn this page with your own hand._ He flipped the page and his eyes settled on the illustration of the Knight being ripped in two.  A face flashed in his mind, his own face as that of the Knight being ripped asunder.  _If the battle renews, is that what will happen?_    He closed his eyes against the thought, “No way.   _No way!_   Will I succumb to such a miserable fate?”   
He slammed the book closed and braced his hands against the desk.  What would his father have done?  He was a warrior.  A soldier.  A good man.   
Conviction filled Fakhir’s heart.  “I’ll change it.”

***

Princess Tutu crept through the shadowy shapes at the front of the blacksmith’s shop toward the light which shone through the work room’s door.  She could hear voices beyond it.  One was Kyron’s.  The other was Mytho’s.  But she knew it wasn’t the Prince speaking.  It was a shard of his heart.  
 “Was this really the right thing to do?” the voice of the smith echoed to her, sounding weary and broken.  
She stepped into the doorway and saw Kyron sitting on the bench at his work table, head in his hands.  The shard of the Prince’s heart stood beside him.  
 “There’s no way to know that,” the shard replied.  “No matter what you do you’ll only regret it.”  
Kyron’s hand went to the work table where a sword lay.  The sword itself was simple and elegant, and though it appeared well kept and cared for, very old.  Tutu’s eyes lit on the sword.  _Is that what Fakhir was looking for?_ She wondered what was so important about that blade that he came all this way for it.  
She didn’t have to wonder what Fakhir wanted with it.  
According to the clock on the wall it was half-past eleven, and Krähe was marrying Mytho at midnight.  Or at least that’s what the invitation said.  She and Fakhir were both working against time to save Mytho.  She had less than an hour to retrieve this heart shard and find the Prince.  
 “You’re right,” the smith sighed, speaking to the shard.   “He doesn’t know this life, or what will happen if I give this to him.  It is not a gift.  It’s a curse.”  
_Curse.  
_ Something white and hot pulsed in her mind, but Tutu was fighting the clock.  She _had_ to get that shard.  “Mr. Kyron,” she stepped into the light and the shard’s apparition flickered out.  
Kyron jumped to his feet, face paling at the sight of her.  “Princess Tutu?  Could it really be?”  
Offering a small smile, counting passing seconds in her head as they prickled anxiously across her skin, Tutu skipped the usual interlude and lifted up en pointe.  She swirled her hands overhead making the mime for dance.  “Please, come dance with me, Mr. Kyron.”  
 “So the tale really has sprung back to life here in our day,” he breathed in awe.  “But I still do not know what it is I should do.”  He hung his head in shame, “I’ve always regretted telling Fakhir the legend.  I regret having hurt Fakhir.  The only things I can do for that child are things that I regret.”  
Oh!  She so _dearly_ wanted to explore what Kyron was speaking of.  There were secrets here.  The secrets to Fakhir.  But she didn’t have time.  Tutu ventured forward another step, reaching again toward the smith.  “No,” she admonished him gently.  She couldn’t believe what she was about to say, but … “You should be able to have faith in him.”  
Kyron’s eyes lifted to her face.  “Have faith in him?”  
 “Yes,” she murmured.  “If Fakhir journeys down the path of his heart’s conviction, I do not believe he’ll regret it, whatever the outcome.  Why not have faith in Fakhir?”  As the words dropped off her tongue Tutu realized that somewhere along the way today, that’s exactly what she had grown to have:  faith in Fakhir.  
The very thought was preposterous.  
Wasn’t he the Fakhir who’d insulted her and threatened her, and made her feel inferior, small, and scared?  Or was he?  Seen through the shade of everything she’d learned, she couldn’t quite distinguish the line between the monster she’d built in her mind and the boy who’d wept in the moonlight.  
Kyron took her outstretched hand, his eyes wide in wonder.  “Faith,” he whispered.  
And as she stepped into the movements of the dance Tutu wondered at her own change of heart.  She thought back on the things Fakhir had done.  Intimidating her.  Frightening her.  Even hurting her … but … he was the one who’d been in pain all along.  She didn’t know why but she could see it was there.  She remembered his tears as he held her less than an hour ago.  It was Mytho’s heart which was shattered, but Fakhir was the broken one.  If a shard of the Prince’s heart had made its way to this house, she found it hard to imagine it wouldn’t take up that broken place inside Fakhir.  Why had it chosen his guardian instead?  Was it because Fakhir had filled his heart with anger so there was no space left to occupy?  
Or was it something else?  
Before her mystic powers could deduce it, the dance had ended and she drew the shard of the Prince’s heart from Kyron’s.   
 “I am the feeling of regret,” it said as it faced her.  And then the translucent red apparaition shimmered into a sparkling jewel in her hands.  
_Regret.  
_ Is that why she was feeling this way?  Tutu didn’t know.  
Kyron’s eyes cleared and he smiled at her.  It was a smile filled with almost childlike awe and it made the years fall from his face.  “The story _is_ real,” he murmured.  Then he bowed his head, “Thank you, Princess.  My doubts have cleared.”  
Hers had only just begun.  
Tutu cradled the feeling of regret in her palms and glanced at the clock on the wall.  Her thoughts went to Krähe and her most recent machinations.  She still had enough time to make it to St. Godfrey’s.  She bobbed into a quick but elegant curtsy, and disappeared back the way she’d come.

***

Mytho stood beside the fountain in the square outside St. Godfrey’s staring up at the tower of the church.  The stars were spinning slowly overhead, but they were cold and distant and held no answers for the thousands of questions careening against each other inside his head.  In his hand he held the black card—the invitation to Krähe’s wedding.  _His_ wedding.  The thought of it made him feel something … something he had no name for.  
He couldn’t decipher what he felt when he thought of Krähe.  By the canal it was curiosity.  At the gazebo it was fear.  In the art school it was … pity maybe.  Sorrow mixed with affection.  When he received the invitation, it was something familiar for which he had no name.  Something distant, like the echoing memory of _something_ yet to be returned to him.  And for some reason, that _something …_ whatever it was … drew him here.  
 “Where are you Princess Tutu?” he wondered.  For she would be here too, he knew.  And he knew what he felt when he thought of her.  _Fear._ Fear at the sight of that last expression on her face as she fled the art school.  Fear at the thought of what might have happened if Fakhir caught up to her.  And another nameless fear he couldn’t quite place or identify, a fear that made no sense for the images in his head made no sense.  Fear at what those images might mean.  
 “My prince!”  
He turned at the sound, his eyes seeking its source and wondered if his own thoughts might have summoned her.  She appeared out of the shadows, a glowing, incandescent creature against the backdrop of night.  “Princess Tutu!”  
Her steps faltered for a moment at the sound of his call, and then she ran to him.  For a moment he thought she meant to fling herself into his arms, but she stuttered to a stop just beyond his reach.  Her hands were cradled in front of her as though she held something infinitely precious.   
He knew what she held.  He could feel it beating in her hands.  
 “I’ve brought you a shard of your heart,” she offered, holding out the shining little jewel.  
Mytho’s eyes were drawn to the pulsing jewel, and then back to her.  He had no words to express what he felt just then except, “Thank you.”  He moved toward her, gently grasped her hands in his as he’d done before, and pressed the palm which held his heart against his chest.  Like a flower blooming, the memories grew in his mind.  
_A sword its tip against his heart…  
__A face covered in blood…  
__“I’m sorry, I failed you.”  
__Pain.  
_  Mytho opened his eyes and saw only Princess Tutu.   _What do these images mean?_ he wondered.  _Are they memory or madness?_ Or both?  
Tutu looked from him to the church.  “Are you going to Krähe?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.  
 “Yes,” he told her, still holding her small, cold hands in his.  “I feel I mustn’t run away.”  
 “My Prince, you mustn’t—” she broke off and bit her lip.  “It’s dangerous.”  
Something inside him softened.  “Tutu—”  
Before he could speak further, a great cacophony filled the sky and they both looked up as an enormous flock of crows descended on the square.  
 “It’s too late…” she breathed, but the words were lost between them amidst the awful din of cawing.  
 “Thank you Princess Tutu!” a strident voice rang out across the flagstones, silencing the birds.  
Mytho tensed and found himself wishing wildly for a weapon.  He couldn’t remember ever wishing something like that before, but it felt natural to do so.  
 “For what?” Tutu demanded into the night, and though her voice sounded strong Mytho could feel her shaking.  
Krähe took shape amidst the shadows, looking like one made for their dark embrace.  A crow settled upon her shoulder and she smiled up at it, stroking its sleek black feathers with one pale hand.  “For going to the trouble of returning the shards of my husband’s heart.”  A gloating expression twisted her painted face as she smiled at Tutu.  
Mytho found himself moving, pushing Tutu behind him.  
Krähe didn’t miss the move, and her smirk deepened.  “But whether you return them or not makes no difference now, for the prince will become mine tonight.”  
 “He’s not your husband,” Tutu retorted hotly, “and that’s _not_ happening.”  
 “Oh I think it is,” Krähe grinned.  She flicked her eyes to Mytho.  “Trust me, my prince, you _do_ love me.  And you will marry me tonight.”     
He opened his mouth to respond, “I will no—”  
Before he could finish, the crows took to wing again and Mytho reacted on instinct.  He jerked Tutu closer as the birds fell on them, covering her with his own body.  But to no avail.  Heavy black wings beat against them from all sides.  Sharp beaks plucked at his clothes, at his hair, and he couldn’t hold on against their onslaught.  The girl was ripped from his arms.  
 “No!” he cried out and Tutu screamed.  He tried to get to her, but the crows and their sharp beaks flew at him, creating a living wall between them of writhing black feathers.  
Through the heavy bodies, Mytho saw Tutu fighting against the creatures, saw red streaks on her arms as their sharp beaks pierced her skin.  “Tutu!” he cried out desperately.  
 “Well, my prince,” Krähe’s purring voice sounded beside him.  “Will you marry me now?”  Her eyes went past him to the crows and she snapped a finger.  At once the birds stopped their attack, and Mytho could see that Tutu was now kneeling in the street bound with black cuffs.  The sight left him breathless with … _something.  
_ Krähe looped an arm through Mytho’s.  “You will marry me, my prince,” she cooed.  “And you, Tutu.  I will have you bear witness.  As a nuptial sacrifice!”

 


	22. Die Weißse und die Schwarze Braute

**_The White and the Black Bride_ **

 

_Fate._ “I’ll change it,” Fakhir whispered, standing again in the street before the smithy.  His hands were shaking.  Why were his hands shaking?  He wasn’t afraid.  Not of dying.  Not of killing, if necessary.  Certainly not of fighting, as Kyron had suggested.  The Bookmen had trained him for that.  No, there was something worse, wasn’t there?  
Failing.   
That’s what he was afraid of.  
That’s why he wanted his father’s sword.  
Fakhir didn’t know much about his father save for the few tales his mother had told him, and a faint scattering of memories grown hazy with time.  But those stories were sacred.  His father was a hero.  It was how he lived.  It was how he died.  It wasn’t how he was remembered.  Now he was buried in a pauper’s grave under some other man’s name, known only as a soldier who’d given his life needlessly, accomplishing nothing.  None of the great deeds he’d done were carved upon that stone.  None of the honors lauded him were remembered at that crypt.  Everything he had been was wiped away in conscious memory by a single miscalculation.  One failure, and all else was forgotten.   
Now all that was left as proof of his father’s valor was the Lohengrin sword.  
 _That’s_ what Fakhir feared.  Not the battle.  Not the sacrifice.  Not the pain.  Not the cost.  Not even death.  He feared the oblivion that follows.  The annihilation of self in all living memory should he fight and fail.   
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.  
Because the one thing Fakhir _did_ remember about his father, the one memory that lived most vividly in his mind, was the day his father let him hold the Lohengrin sword.  _“Sine metu”,_ he’d read from the hilt of that sword.  _Without fear.  
_ Fakhir took a deep, steadying breath and pictured those words on the flowing hilt of a battle-hardened blade.  _Without fear._ Steeling himself, he pushed his own anxieties aside and for the second time that night he stepped into his childhood home.  The shadows of the smithy were longer now.  The light coming from the work room was more subdued.  A single candle was burning now.  Kyron had his back to the door.  He was standing at the grinding stone working something that Fakhir couldn’t see.  When he heard Fakhir enter, Kyron stopped what he was doing and turned. _  
    _ “I’ve been waiting for you, Fakhir,” Kyron greeted him, and he said it like a man who’d been counting down the seconds to the executioner.  
 “I am afraid,” Fakhir spoke, and his voice sounded hoarse in his own ears.  “That isn’t going to stop me.”  
Kyron’s mouth set in a hard, thin line.  “It never has before.”  He glanced away and his gaze became distant.  “It wasn’t what I wanted for you, Fakhir,” he said.  Then he took the thing he’d been working against the grinding stone and laid it on the table between them.  “But every man must choose his own fate.”  
Fakhir looked at the object on the table.  _His father’s sword.  
_  “Do what you must.”  
He blinked from the sword to the smith, shock percolating through his veins.  
Kyron held his gaze, his own steady and unwavering.  “Leave no cause for regret.”  
Fakhir stood as one transfixed, “Kyron—”  
Lifting the sword off the table, Kyron stepped around it and approached him.  He pressed the sword into Fakhir’s startled hands.  And then to Fakhir’s shock, he grasped him by the shoulders, his eyes shining with some hidden emotion.  “Go, my son.”  
Fakhir’s fist spasmed onto the hilt of the sword he now held.  
 _Without fear.  
_ That’s what it said.  
And on the other side…  
 _With love._

***

_Nuptial sacrifice, my pretty pink toe shoe._ Tutu thought mutinously as she was hauled against her will into the nave of St. Godfrey’s.  Krähe, her arm still looped through Mytho’s, strode insolently into the church and Tutu found herself hoping the evil little witch would burst into flames upon entering holy ground.  She might have too, except that something was weirdly wrong about the church as they entered it.  All the pews were gone.  There _had_ been pews right?  She wasn’t sure.  She’d never been inside St. Godfrey’s.  Still, it made sense that the church would have pews.  Churches had pews, right?  
There weren’t any of the usual accoutrements either.  No candles.  No statues.  No altar.  No anything.  And up in the chancel where the altar _should_ be, in place of the high altar where a tabernacle once rested was an elaborate sculpture of a swan.  The whole place reeked with a sense of _wrongness_ that crawled under Tutu’s skin and burned.   
Under her feet, the square paving tiles that stretched from columned wall to columned wall seemed strangely off as well.  Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew—the same way she knew about altars and statues and tabernacles—that they should all be the same uniform blue-grey.  But they weren’t.  They were very faintly blue, and distinctly grey, in an equally distinct checkerboard pattern that had chills dancing up and down her spine.  There was something _wrong_ about all of this.  And it wasn’t just the fact that her hands were cuffed behind her with black cuffs that had once been and probably still were a living, breathing crow.  
Overhead in the shadowy arches that towered above, amongst the vaulted ribs curving away on all sides, the _susurrus_ of ten thousand shifting feathers echoed eerily down.  By the dim light of hundreds of candles in standing candelabra, the glint of countless ruby eyes glared down, and Tutu felt the overwhelming malevolent presence like a weight on her chest.  
 “Isn’t it perfect,” Krähe breathed, leaning into Mytho, pressing herself against him in a way that reminded Tutu of Annette.  “My subjects did _such_ a good job, didn’t they my Prince?”  
Mytho was silent, his back straight and stiff.  
Krähe, apparently unperturbed by his lack of response, shot a smug look over her shoulder.  “What say you, Princess Tutu?  Aren’t we just perfect for each other?”  She spoke the words in a sensual purr as she turned herself and the Prince to face her captive.  They’d reached the middle of the church, several paces away, and Krähe’s expression was downright triumphant.  Gone was the girl who’d looked so scared and confused in the art school.  This Krähe was as malignant as the birds she commanded.  
Tutu glowered back.  “What exactly are you hoping to achieve here, Krähe?” she demanded.  “Do you really think any of this will make the Prince marry you?”  
 “Before you came along and started putting his shattered heart together, you mean?” she cocked one perfectly plucked eyebrow.  “You’re out of your league here, Tutu.  The sooner you admit it, the sooner everything here will go much more smoothly for you.”  
Rage and frustration spiked in her veins, and Tutu threw herself forward despite her hands being bound behind her.  To her surprise her hands fell free, the crow which had held them was flapping away to join its brethren overhead.  At almost the same instant she collided with … something.  She struck against the invisible force, bounced off, and landed on her hip on the hard marble floor.  
 “Oh!” Krähe grinned, “I forgot to tell you.  I prepared a special seat just for you.”  She waved one pale hand and the bars Tutu hadn’t seen before became visible.  
A cage.  
She was trapped in a cage.  
Leaving Mytho’s side, Krähe sauntered forward as Tutu scrambled to her feet.  “Why are you doing this?” she hissed through the bars.  She tried to touch them, to wrap her hands around them, perhaps to shake them loose—or at least take out her frustration on them.  But the moment her hands touched the black bars which seemed to swallow all light, they burned against her skin and she snatched her stinging palms back.  Raised welts, already blistering, scored her hands.  “What is this?” she demanded incredulously.  
Krähe, standing just the other side of the cage now, smirked.  She traced one black nail against the nearest bar.  “Aren’t they lovely?  I had them prepared just for you.  Would you believe they’re nothing more than wood?  You’re supposed to be good with all those growing things, why don’t you use your powers on them?  Make them grow.  Make them release you and bind me instead.  You _can_ do that, can’t you?”  
Despite the mocking lilt in Krähe’s voice, Tutu _did_ try to turn her powers against the wooden bars.  _Power over the flowing and formless, the growing and changing._ But as her mind reached out to touch the black bars, she felt its force snap back, she felt it strike her, and she crashed into the back of the cage.  With a scream she recoiled from the burning bars.  Somewhere in the distance she heard her name called, but all she saw was Krähe laughing.  
 “Oh I forgot to tell you, the bars are made of blackthorn bathed in crow’s blood.”  Krähe bent nearer, “Thirteen of my most devoted subjects gave their lives to make this special seat for you.”  
 “Why!?” Tutu hissed.  
Krähe’s eyes went wide.  “Why?  My dear, I told you from the beginning.”  Her face twisted into something close to a demonic mask, “ _I_ am the Prince’s true bride.”  
Tears stung Tutu’s eyes.  “And you think _this_ is the way to win him?”  
Krähe straightened up and surveyed the twisted sanctuary.  “I admit it isn’t ideal.  But then no love affair is.  You would know that of course, except wait!” her burning red eyes swung back to Tutu.  “You can’t ever confess your love, can you?  Not unless you want to become a speck of light and vanish!”  
Tutu looked past the crow princess, ignoring her own burning eyes, and saw Mytho.  He stood flanked by two giant shadows.  Crows maybe.  Maybe something worse.  He was looking at her, his face white and worried.  And something, something in his eyes where only weeks ago there had been nothing.  Something that looked a whole lot like anger.  
 “It won’t work,” she growled, focusing on Krähe once more.  “Whatever you had planned here tonight—your attempts to keep him as he is—it won’t work.  Even if you do manage to defeat me it won’t work.  He’s already changing, and he wants to change now.  You’ve already lost.”  
Something flashed in Krähe’s eyes, but it was gone before Tutu could trace it.  And then a shadow formed in her hand, a large black primary feather.  It curved into something else before Tutu’s eyes, and suddenly Krähe held a wickedly curved black blade.  “My dear little Princess,” Krähe cooed, bending closer.   
The blade slid neatly between the bars of her cage, its tip barely brushing against her breastbone.  Tutu tried to edge away from it, but the burning bars pressed closer against her back.  The cage was shrinking around her, making escape impossible.  
 “You have no idea, do you?” Krähe exulted.  “I don’t have to defeat you.  You lost this fight before it ever began.”  
The black blade touched her, just over the heart, a tiny prick that didn’t even have the power to pierce the stiff white bodice of her dress.  It stabbed into her all the same with a force like fire.  Tutu gasped against the surge of pain that drove her to her knees and robbed her lungs of air.  It pinned in her place, immobilized her, took her voice.   
 “Krä … he,” she choked out.  And she wasn’t sure if she was swearing or begging.  Krähe’s ringing laughter filled her ears.  
And then all she knew was pain.

***

 “Tutu!” Mytho cried out as the girl fell to her knees.  “Krähe stop!” She was hurting.  She was in _pain._ He could feel it too.  A pressure against his chest.  Against his heart.  A shortness of breath.  He tried to charge toward the cage to help her, but the shadows on either side grabbed for him.  He shrugged them off but they clung like fog to his sleeves, keeping him back.  
Krähe swung around, a smile playing over her painted lips.  “Oh don’t worry about her, my prince.  She’s just enjoying a little gift, that’s all.  A taste of what’s to come.”  She tossed aside the feather she held and it floated harmlessly through the air.  
 _A feather!?_ Mytho stared at it, then at Tutu.  She was on her hands and knees now, staring sightlessly through the bars of the cage, one fist pressed against her chest.  He could _feel_ it.  A strange pressure over his own heart, and he knew it was because of _her._ Because of whatever Krähe had done.  
 “Dance with me, my love,” Krähe commanded, holding a hand imperiously toward him.  When he didn’t answer, or even acknowledge her, she glanced toward the cage.  “I could do away with Tutu this very second,” she threatened breezily, “but let’s celebrate.”  
Mytho’s eyes widened and his mouth went dry.  _Fear._ “Don’t,” he warned.  
Krähe’s smile sweetened.  “Oh I won’t, not if you don’t want me to, my prince.  I could let her live.  It could be my wedding gift to you.”   
 _Ah,_ he thought.  _So that’s it.  
_ She stepped closer, winding her arms around him.  From somewhere music began to play, and shadowy shapes took form around them.  The _susurrus_ above increased and the church was suddenly filled with couples, all dressed in antiquated clothes with crow’s masks on their heads, twirling in time to a royal waltz.  Krähe pulled Mytho into the steps of the dance, and helpless against her obviously very real threat, Mytho let her.  
 “Mytho—” he heard Tutu whimper.  
His eyes cut to her and she was watching him now.  Her face was twisted, pale and clammy in the candle’s eerie glow.  
 “Look at me, my prince,” Krähe commanded, turning his face toward her with one cold hand.  
 “Krähe,” he questioned, feeling helpless and wretched, “who are you?”  
The corners of her lips curved up into a smile so close to genuine it was almost beautiful.  “Look into my eyes, my love,” she whispered, “you know who I am.”  
Mytho did look, and at first all he saw was his own face reflected back from those ruby depths.  Then the face that he saw changed.  It was still his, but it was … different.  
 _A room full of laughter, music, and light.  A thousand people, a string quartet.  A rare evening of civility in a turbulent time.  A voice in his ear…  
_ _“My liege, someone to meet you.”  
_ _A pair of dark eyes, alluringly cast down.  A twist of ebony hair, a curtsy of crimson silk.  
_ _He bows and smiles, but the eyes stay down.  A quiet word, barely heard.  A hand in his, pale and perfect, lifted to his lips.  
_ _The eyes come up, he sees them at last.  His own face reflected back at him.  All he sees is her.  
_ _“Will you dance with me?”  
_ _A nod.  
_ _A hand in his, feet following his own.  A spinning room.  An endless waltz.  People everywhere, voices, chatter.  Whispers, rumors.  A girl in white across the room.  Her eyes on him.  A smile.  The music swells, the dance goes on.  He never wants it to end.  
_ Mytho stared into Krähe’s eyes, seeing these things, not knowing what they meant.  Were they real?  Were they memory?  Was it a trick?  Confusion washed over him.  He felt drawn toward her, like she was right.  Like this was real.  Like…  
 “You know who I am,” she breathed as they twirled across the cathedral floor.  
 _Around and around.  The room spins but they’re standing still.  The people crowd in but they are alone.  The voices resound but there’s only the music.  She smiles at him and everything else disappears.  
_ A flash.  
 _A raven-haired beauty broken at his feet.  
_ Mytho blinked.  
 _The string quartet plays.  One waltz becomes two.  
_ White light.  
 _A girl dressed in black, crumpled on checkerboard tiles.  
_ He shook his head, blinking again.  
 _Her smile lights up the room.  Her laughter is music all its own.  
_ Burning light.  
 _A pale face turned up to his under a wealth of ebony hair.  Shock.  Rage.  Betrayal.  
_ Pain.  Mytho closed his eyes against it.  
 _The music dies out.  The waltz spins to a close.  “My Prince…”_       
 “My beautiful prince,” Krähe crowed softly, “you are mine.”  
 “Krähe,” he blinked the strange images away and frowned at her.  “Who _are_ you?” he repeated.  “Why must you demand I be yours?”  
 “Because it is fate,” she purred.  
 “Fate?” he scoffed at her, pulling back to see her more clearly.  “Who’s fate is that?”  
She laughed lightly, “It matters not whose fate it is.  Fate cannot be changed.  Not by anyone.”  
 “I don’t—”  
His words were cut off when the doors burst open, moonlight flooded the sanctuary, and chaos entered.

***

Fakhir wasn’t exactly sure what he expected to find when he crashed through the doors of St. Godfrey’s, but what he did see when his eyes adjusted to the change made him haul back on the reins of the horse he’d ridden right through the front doors.  The sound of heavy hoofs striking stone clattered to a stop.  Krähe had been busy.  His eyes flicked from Princess Tutu in her cage, to the crow-faced dancers, to the crow princess herself and rage blossomed in his chest replacing any fear he might have ever felt.  
 “Why must you always interfere!” Krähe raged, pulling away from Mytho.  She stomped her foot.  Actually _stomped_ her foot at him.  
 “If it’s not too late,” he drawled, surprised at the calm in his own voice, “I’d like to object.”  
Her eyes went to his horse, “Don’t you think that’s a bit sacrilegious?” she spat back prissily.  
His eyebrows went up, he shot a look around the emptied cathedral, and chose to let that pass.  “Back away from Mytho, you filthy raven,” he warned.  “Or my blasphemy will be the least of your worries.”  
 “Fakhir!” Mytho cried out.  And for the first time in days he sounded relieved to see him.  
Fakhir skipped over thinking about how Mytho could _feel_ relieved, and instead drew his sword.  
 “So the coward brought a little toy,” Krähe sneered.  “You couldn’t keep hold of the last one, what makes you think this one will be any better?”  
He skipped thinking about that as well and jumped down from his horse.  “I’ll suffer you to be near Mytho no more!”  
She huffed and flicked her hand.  The crow-faced couples transformed suddenly into crow-faced fiends with black swords in their hands.  They came at him.  
Fakhir had time enough to throw an angry look at Krähe before turning his attention to her beasts.  _Without fear,_ he reminded himself.  Then, _you were trained for this._   And then there was no more thinking.  
It wasn’t like dancing.  There were no patterns.  No practiced steps.  No pretty choreography to follow.  Yet at the same time it was thrillingly similar.  Because he _had_ practiced all of these steps.  Each swift strike and block.  Each feint and thrust.  Each step and turn.  It used all the same muscles and more besides.  But the beat was different now.  The tune had changed.  The pattern was ever-shifting.  It wasn’t just acting, it was reacting and proacting.  Like a violent game of chess.  
Fakhir ducked under one swinging sword, brought the Lohengrin blade up and his opponent burst into shadows.  The defeated fiend transformed again into a crow, cawing and flapping away in terror.  He didn’t pause to watch it, but turned immediately to the next assailant.  
And the next.  
And the next.  
And the next.  
And the next.  
He was dimly aware as he battled of Krähe on the edges of the action, shrieking and swearing at her minions as they fell into shattered shards of darkness one after the other.  And of Mytho, circling around the crow princess toward Tutu in her cage.  And as the last of the crow fiends burst into shadows that swirled like fog around him, clinging briefly before fading away, he turned to Krähe at last.  
 “Did you really think I came unprepared?” he hissed at her, raising his blade again.  His rage had turned into boiling power in his veins, and it thirsted for blood.  _Her_ blood.  His vengeance.  _It was her crows that killed my parents,_ he realized.  And that fed the rage too.   
 “You are more impressive than I gave you credit for,” she growled back, “I’ll grant you that.  But I promise you, you’ll regret this,” she swore.  “Next time, you _will_ regret this.”   
 “There’ll be no next time,” he vowed, “I’ll finish it now.”  He charged at her, but before he could strike she’d spun herself into a whirlwind of darkness, and she and her crows disappeared.  
 “Coward,” he spat at her retreat.  
All around the nave of St. Godfrey’s slowly resumed its natural form.  Fakhir watched it disinterestedly, struggling to get his breath back, to force the anger back down.  He felt the press of the others at his back and wished them away.  Well maybe not Mytho, but certainly _her.  
_  “Fakhir,” Mytho’s voice.  
Still struggling with himself, Fakhir turned and saw the prince standing a step away.  Tutu stood beside him looking a hell of a lot better than she had when he rode in.  Something ruby winked at her throat, drawing his eye.  _She has the stone back?_ Or maybe he’d been wrong before.  Maybe the stone he he’d found wasn’t hers after all.  What difference did it make, anyway?   
Fakhir glared at her, but she didn’t glare back.  In fact, she was looking at him weird.  Why was she smiling?  “What is it?” he burst out, louder than necessary and full of anger still.  He didn’t like her looking at him.  He didn’t like her _smiling_ at him.  He didn’t like seeing the streaks of red blood down her arms.  At least this time it looked like she had _tried_ to fight for the prince.  But that didn’t make him feel any better toward her.  “Hurry and begone, or do you have a burning desire to settle things now?” he demanded.  
She only smiled wider, “I don’t have any wish to fight you.”  
Fakhir gaped at her, completely lost for words as she dipped into a petite reverence and floated away.  Mytho was looking at him strangely, but all Fakhir saw was _her._ And that flash in his mind again of a face in the rain, the most beautiful face he had ever seen.  And then like Tutu, it was gone.

***

 “Oh why do they lock the gates at curfew!” Aria cried out in frustration, pulling at the bars of the dorm gates as if that would do any good.  Her hands still stung, still bearing the red welts from St. Godfrey’s, and it hurt to rattle the gates but it made her feel better too.  She glanced over her shoulder, then kicked desperately at the gates again.  “Fakhir and Mytho are going to catch up to me!” she wailed.  And when they did her secret would be out.  
She could turn into a duck again, but then her clothes would be here and wouldn’t that just be weird?  And Aria was tired of being a duck.  She’d just gotten back to being a girl.  Her eyes snagged on the stone wall and she made a snap decision and started to climb.  Unfortunately she was getting pretty good at scaling walls, but it still wasn’t easy.  
She could hear footsteps approaching as she neared the top, and she heard the low rumble of male voices.  Panic spiked in her chest, she rushed up the last couple inches to the top, hauled herself up, and tumbled over the other side right into the shrubbery lining the walk.  
 _Ouch!_   She just barely kept from crying out as the rattle of the gate and the groaning of hinges reached her.  
 _Fakhir must have a key.  I bet all the seniors have keys.  That is_ so _not fair.  
_ She wiggled into a slightly more dignified position crouched behind the bushes, and tried to peer through the leafy branches and see what was going on.  She heard footsteps crunching across the gravel toward the boy’s dorm, and chanced a look over the top of the shrubs in that direction.  
 “Hey, you.”  
Aria squeaked and spun.  Fakhir was still standing at the gates, obviously there to lock them again.  And he was looking at her.  All the blood drained out of her head.  “Um, hi?”  
 “Hi nothing,” he snapped.  “What do you think you’re doing?”  
She froze.  “What am I—what am I doing?”  _Yeah Aria, what_ are _you doing?  Because you sure as heck aren’t going to tell him what you_ have _been doing._   And then curse it all but her brain just turned off and she found herself babbling nervously, “What else could I be doing but that?” she asked nonsensically, pulling at the sleeves of her jacket to ensure no trace of the blood streaking her arms could be seen.  “It’s just such a nice night.  And isn’t the moon big?  And Pique’s snoring could wake the dead.  So obviously there’s nothing to do but that, but all I’m finished now.”  
 “That?” he repeated back blankly.  
 “You know, _that._ ”  She got to her feet.  “Well, see you.”  She marched quickly away toward her dorm and prayed for a miracle.  
 “Hey,” Fakhir called after her, “Tutu!”  
She froze, realized what she’d done, and muttered “crap!”   
Fakhir started toward her.  
Aria ran.  
 “Wait!” and his voice carried a command.  
Aria’s courage at that point failed.  “Good night Fakhir!” she called, and raced across the lawn to the dorm.  She grabbed at the handle, hauled the heavy door open, and slammed it shut behind her.  She leaned against it as if afraid Fakhir would throw himself into it, and clasped her pendant protectively in both hands.  Panic and worry and fear and about a thousand other things zinged through her limbs.  Despair won out.  
 “Oh what do I do now?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blackthorn trees (Prunus spinosa), mentioned in this chapter, are often depicted in fairy tales as a tree of ill omen. They are found throughout Europe and tend to be more of a large shrub than a tree. A member of the rose family, they are covered in long sharp thorns, and when they lose their leaves in winter, have a stark twisted black skeleton. They make pretty little white star-shaped flowers in the spring, and have a blue-black fruit that ripens after the first frost and is used to make ink and strong red dyes. In Ogham blackthorn is called Straif, from which the English word "strife" may derive. According to my research, in witchcraft the blackthorn "tree" is associated with the dark side of the craft, and with warfare, wounding, and death. It was said in the dark ages that the Devil pricked his follower's fingers with the thorn of a blackthorn tree.


	23. Fee Geschenke

**_Faery Gifts_ **

 

     Wind whips against the woman, lashing her skirt against her legs as she mounts the arching bridge which crosses the canal amidst the light early-morning foot traffic.  A storm brews, dark clouds growing in the distance, towering into the heavens.  She clenches her gloved hands and continues on, ignoring the wind that tears at her skirts, that pastes the thin silk veils to her face so that every feature is defined beneath.  She holds her chin high, proud, and _doesn’t_ look the other villagers in the eye as she passes them.  As they stare obviously at her.  As they whisper and point.  
     At the crown of the bridge where it levels out, a pretty woman with a painted face stands holding a hand organ, grinding resolutely upon the crank.  A tinny rendition from _Coppelia i_ s swept away upon the wind.  But the organ grinder grinds steadily on.   
     Rain begins to fall.  Light at first, the initial droplets of the deluge.  Umbrellas come out, go up, the world becomes a sea of colors and shades.  The veiled woman has no such protection to reach for, and as the rain falls, it shapes the silk more surely against her skin.  A brow can be seen, high and stately.  A shapely nose.  The perfect bow of an upper lip.  More than a few people are looking now.  The face beneath the veil appears to be beautiful.  Those lips twist into a knowing smile—that not all is as it appears to be.  
      “Would you like to buy some jewels?” the organ grinder calls to the passing morning crowd.  
     No one on this bridge is going to buy jewels.  These are peasants.  Workers.  Servants.  Laborers.  Men and women struggling to put bread on their tables.  Not the sort to waste their money on shiny stones whose only value in the world is decoration.  But the woman strides up to the peddler all the same.  
     Black skirt shiny with rain, long purple gloves shiny all on their own, black lace bodice with its high starched collar, and gauzy purple veil tucked into that collar serving only now to hide the appearance and not the expression of the face beneath.  A picture of stately elegance and mystery.  “Excuse me,” she says, and holds out one delicate, purple-gloved hand.  “Won’t you please take this?”  
     The organ grinder’s eyes register surprise.  She looks from the veiled face down at the silk-gloved hand to the jewel resting against the woman’s palm.  “It’s quite lovely,” she replies.  “Does it have a name?”  
     The woman tenses beneath her layers of cloth.  “The name of the jewel is love.”  Bitterness drops from her tongue, tainting the words.  
      “Love…” the organ grinder stares again at the jewel.  It is a brilliant thing, full of fire and light.  The purest golden color like a drop of sunlight, with a winking ruby center.  A slight inclusion, enough to mar it and make it priceless.  “I would advise you not to let it go.  It suits you.”  
      “No,” the woman’s voice is firm now, sure if a little sad.  “I had no right to be holding on to such a thing.  Someone like me never did.”  
      “I see.”  The organ grinder looks again at the face beneath the veil as though searching for something.  It is unclear if she finds it or not, but she reaches for the jewel all the same and plucks the perfect little stone off the woman’s outstretched hand.  
     The woman’s entire body seems to relax as the jewel is lifted away.  “Thank you,” she says, breathing a sigh of relief.  She turns and starts back the way she’d come.  
     In a distant in-between, the spirit of a storyteller tipped his rocking chair forward and peered more closely at the flowing sands of time.  “Who is that?” he demanded of no one in particular.  “I don’t recognize her.  I haven’t seen her in the story before.  Did I write that character?  I can’t remember.”  
     The woman’s back was to him now as she strode with a certain regality away from his little puppet.  Not one inch of skin or strand of hair was visible beneath the layers she wore, and the spirit’s spectral eyes narrowed suspiciously.  Behind the woman, the puppet raised the golden jewel to see it better.  And even in the dim stormlight, the jewel shown with a glow all its own.  
      “Now why don’t I like this?” the spirit rumbled grumpily.  
     Suddenly the woman stiffened, her back going ramrod straight.  She turned slowly back, only her head and shoulders, and that upturned face seemed to look right into the sands of time.  Right _through_ them.  
     The spirit jumped out of his chair in alarm.  “Is it her!?” he gasped, fear and anger warring against each other in his icy, frozen soul.  “Impossible!”  He bent nearer to the flowing sands of time, his nose almost touching their reflected surface.  
     The woman continued to stare back.  And then—seen quite clearly through her rain-plastered veils—she smiled.  
     The spirit reeled away, upturning the chair which fell through the shadowy void beyond.  “She died!” he raged.  “Dead, dead, dead!  Deader than me!”  He ranted and stomped in a circle, waving his hands wildly.  “Cunning little cunt!  She even made _me_ believe it.”  
     His eyes went back to his puppet, now tucking the jewel unwittingly into her tray.  He had no doubt as to its nature if it had been in the hands of _her._ “What are you up to, witch?” he demanded.  
     The woman turned away then, giving him her back, and strode off the bridge and into the morning mist rising off the canal.   
     Infuriated, the spirit put his foot through the sands of time.  They shattered, obscuring the image of the town, and then slowly began to reform themselves.  “The story was just beginning to come together!” he howled.  “We finally had all the characters assembled!  A prince without a heart to feel.  A knight crippled by fear.  A villain without resolve.  And a princess who cannot express her love.  It was all in place, and then that… that _interloper_ had to interfere!”  He howled again and flung his cape after the chair into the shadowy void.  
     Wait.  
     _Love.  
_      A wicked grin curved the spirit’s face and he turned back toward the sands of time.  “Oh I have a good feeling about this.  My dear puppet, I think I know _exactly_ how the next chapter should end.”  His eyes flicked to the witch, or rather to where she’d disappeared into the fog.  “As for _her,_ I think I know how _she_ should end as well.”

***

      “What is _with_ you?”  
     Aria jumped almost a foot in the air and spun toward Piqué whose eyes widened at her reaction.  
      “Seriously,” the girl emphasized.  “You’ve been jumpy all morning.  Is someone holding a schuhplattler on your grave or something?”  
     Aria tried for a nervous smile but it came out more like a grimace.  Her eyes swept the quad of Gold Crown Academy, then tracked back through the administrative building’s chandeliered foyer.  No sign of Mytho, and especially no sign of Fakhir.  “No, I’m okay,” she tried to assure her friends who were both now staring at her like she was mad.  “I guess I must not have slept well last night.  Bad dreams you know.  Monsters and villains and scary things like crows.  It’s made me a bit jumpy, that’s all.”  
     Inside she was losing it.  Fakhir had called her Tutu.  He’d _known._   How had he known?  It couldn’t just be because he saw her in the courtyard. Any student could have been wandering around in the courtyard at that hour.  Maybe it was just a guess.  If it was a guess did her freezing like that when he called her confirm it?   
     She knew _now_ what she should have done, after tossing and turning sleeplessly all night and running that single incident over a thousand and one times.  She _should_ have frowned, turned back, and asked him what he was talking about.  She should have said, _“Tutu?  Where?  I don’t see any tutus.”_   Or she should have said, _“Are you feeling okay, Fakhir?”_   Or any one of the dozens of other replies she _should_ have thought of but didn’t.  And now it was too late.  
     _What will Fakhir do to me now?_ she wondered, chewing her lip and not listening to Lillie prattling on about a date she’d had with one of the senior danseurs at the pizzeria the other night.   
      “Alright,” Piqué burst out, grabbing Aria’s arm and forcing her down on one of the stone benches by the swan fountain.  She stood in front of her, arms crossed.  “You’ve been sighing all morning.  Spill.  And don’t give me another cockamamie story about nightmares.”  
      “Oh be nice!” Lillie complained.  She sat down by Aria and clasped her hand.  “Poor thing,” she comforted, “the scars of rejection must truly run deep.”  
     _Rejection?_   Aria’s face twisted as she tried to trace what they were talking about.  She gave up.  “What?”  
      “It’s Mytho, isn’t it?”  Lillie asked, leaning toward her.  “He never responded to your confession of love.”  
      “No,” Aria answered, chewing her lip absentmindedly and only half paying attention.  “It’s Fakhir actually.”  
      “Fakhir!” both Lillie and Piqué squealed together.  Lillie almost delightedly.  Piqué a little less so.  
      “You’re supposed to like Mytho,” Piqué responded hotly.  “You’ve already got Femio panting after you.  You’re not going to take all the boys, are you?”  She was looking affronted.  
     Aria cast her a horrified look.  “What _are_ you talking about!?”  
      “You like Fakhir!” Lillie squealed again.  
      “I do _not,_ ” Aria shook her head, jumping to her feet and backing away as if Lillie had just suggested she dance naked in the moonlight on the roof of St. Godfrey’s.  “I’m not even sure if he’s a nice person!”  _I mean, okay, he probably saved my life and Mytho’s in the church last night, and he’s nice to me when I’m a duck, and I’m starting to see that there’s a lot about Fakhir I don’t know and maybe I’d understand him a little better if I did, and I know he isn’t trying to hurt Mytho, he’s trying to help him, but I’m pretty sure he’d try to hurt Tutu.  Except of course last night he could have and he didn’t, but maybe that’s just because he’d already fought off all those crow things already.  And he_ was _kind of good at that.  I wonder_ how _he got good at that.  How do you get good at that sort of thing?_  
     She thought all this but didn’t say it—and considered that a personal triumph of sorts.  And while her own thoughts were babbling in her head, Piqué and Lillie had moved on with their suppositions.  
      “Don’t worry about Fakhir,” Piqué was saying.  “You’ve just got to go for it with Mytho.  You should get him a present.”  
      “Yeah!” Lillie agreed with characteristic enthusiasm.  She leapt to her feet and clapped her hands together.  “Then you’ll see how he really feels about you too.”  
     Aria’s mind stuttered to a stop, her internal rant clicking off as she stared gape-mouthed at Lillie.  _I can’t do that!_  
      “Really?”  
     This voice came from behind them and Aria’s back went straight with terror.  _Mytho._   Already knowing what she was going to see, face flaming now, she turned and there he stood.  And right beside him with his usual glower in place, was Fakhir.  Only this time he wasn’t staring into the middle distance with feigned—or maybe not-so feigned—disinterest.  His eyes were boring right into her with scary-intense focus.  
     Lillie’s mouth fell open and her eyes might have glazed over a bit.  
     Piqué looked to be in danger of a similar fate.  
      “So giving someone a present will reveal what they feel about you?” Mytho asked with genuine curiosity.  
      “Oh no, were you listening to that?” Lillie gasped.  
      “Give him a present now and he’ll see your ulterior motive!” Piqué whispered in Aria’s ear.  
     Aria elbowed her violently.  She hadn’t dared look at Mytho.  She hadn’t dared take her eyes off Fakhir.  
      “When you say present, what kind of thing do you mean?” Mytho pressed.  
      “Oh no!” Lillie was on the verge of a panic attack now.  
      “Say Duck, how do you think we should answer?” Piqué whispered again.  
     Aria thanked her lucky stars—however many of them were left—that at least Mytho and Fakhir were standing on the sidewalk, far enough away they couldn’t hear Piqué’s none-too-subtle whispers, or Lillie’s nearly-soundless squeaks.  
     Clearly surmising he wasn’t going to get an answer from either of the others, Mytho switched his attention to _her_.  “Say Aria, what would you want if it were you?”  
     Aria felt like her heart stopped beating for a long minute, and only when the world started to fuzz at the edges did she realize she’d forgotten to breathe.  She was probably about two seconds away from sharing Lillie’s panic attack, but she had at least managed to tear her attention away from Fakhir’s dark scowl.  Unfortunately now she was gaping, pale-faced and trembling, at Mytho.  Beside her, Piqué and Lillie both had the same comical gape-mouthed expression.  Piqué recovered first, for better or worse.  “Oh Duck would take anything!” she assured him, “Anything at all.”  
     Aria didn’t miss Fakhir turning away, hiding the twisted smirk on his face.  
      “As long as it’s given with love,” Lillie affirmed.  
      “Love?” Mytho looked disappointed, “There needs to be love?”  
     Aria’s face now matched her hair and she elbowed _both_ her friends.  Hard.  “Anyway, you shouldn’t really listen to girl talk Mytho.  It’s mostly pointless anyway.”  
     Piqué elbowed her back and Fakhir muttered something under his breath that she didn’t even have to guess at without knowing it wasn’t nice.  
      “Mr. Fürst.”  
     Five heads swung around as Mr. Catt strode up to them.  He walked right to Mytho, “Mr. Fürst, may I have a moment of your time?  The summer showcase is almost upon us and the dance school’s production of Giselle is…”  The dance instructor was already pulling Mytho away.  
     Fakhir blinked after him once, then swung his attention right back to Aria and she felt herself quail.  He brushed by them, and while Lillie and Piqué were apparently struck dazed by his nearness, he dropped four words on Aria with the force of ten pound stones.  Each.  
      “Small studio, ten minutes.”  
     Aria watched his retreating back while he strode into the school.  
     _Shit._

***

     Fakhir stood at the window overlooking the quad, his back to the small practice studio, hands clasped behind him, a picture of calm.  Inside he was raging.  Seconds ago he was pacing the floor, his shoes clacking loudly on the worn hardwood.  Now he was tense, expectant, wondering if the girl would even show up.   
     It was so obvious, and he was so obviously a fool for having not noticed it before.  No one else could have possibly been Tutu.  She was the only one there from the beginning.  And if she hadn’t been so entirely useless in every other capacity, he would have seen it sooner.  But she was clever, wasn’t she?  Making like she was an idiot, like she was useless, even pretending she couldn’t dance.  She was the Scarlet Pimpernel, the mysteriously powerful creature disguised as the fop—as the fool—when in fact she was the genius behind the plot.  The fact he hadn’t put that together made his blood boil.  
     _It doesn’t matter who Princess Tutu is,_ he told himself, _I will protect Mytho in my own way.  I’ll be the one guarding him from the clutches of that raven._  
     Fakhir ground his teeth together.  
     _Without fear._  
     Behind him the door opened, swinging just barely wide enough to admit the frail wisp of a girl who’d so cleverly bested him up until now.  He tamped down on his temper—or tried to—and waited with the semblance of patience as she crossed the floor.  She stopped several paces away, clearly wary of approaching too closely.  
     _Clever,_ he thought of her again, and hated himself all the more.   
      “What did you want to ask me?” her words were hesitant, her voice soft and it barely carried to him.  
     Fakhir turned from the window and faced her.  “Princess Tutu.”  It wasn’t a question.  
     She made a sound, a sort of choked squawk and clapped her hands over her mouth.  Her face had gone pale, and against the red of her hair—haphazardly swept into something that likely was supposed to be a braid today—it looked almost white.  
     She was terrified, he realized.  She was even shaking.  He could see it from here.  But as he watched the fear melted out of her eyes to be replaced by something … something _else._ He wasn’t sure what.  It wasn’t pride.  It wasn’t calm.  Fakhir’s eyes widened as the realization hit him like a slap in the face.  It was _acceptance._  
     She’d known he figured it out the moment he called her by name in the courtyard.  Last night her fight or flight instinct led her to flee.  He’d wondered if confronting her would lead her to fight.  But Fakhir could see now that she knew there was no fighting the fact he’d ferreted her secret.  And rather than rage against it or run from it, she faced it.  _Courage._ That’s what she had.  There she was, barely a hundred pounds of fragile sinew.  And here he stood:  trained, capable, with height and weight and strength on his side.   Yet she came, she’d faced him—the thing that she feared.  While he had spent the better part of fifteen years working to ensure that those things he feared would never come to pass, even if doing so made him into something he hated.  It was clear as crystal standing before him that this little wisp of a girl had a dozen times more bravery than he.  Fakhir felt that, a bitter pill poisoning him from the inside out.  
     He scowled and looked away, unable to take the sight of her standing in front of him.  Instead he narrowed his eyes on the reflection of the back of her head in the shattered mirror.  “You are, aren’t you?”   
     She didn’t answer him, just stared with those vibrant blue eyes that had haunted his dreams of late.  
     Fakhir turned his back on her abruptly, gripping the windowsill now with white-knuckled hands.  “I’m surprised to be honest.  Of all the people, I never expected it was you.”  
     She shrugged and he saw it in her reflection in the window.  Everything about her said _nobody._ Yet she wasn’t.  “I want to ask you something too,” she spoke up, and this time her words carried to him, strong and sure, and she surprised him again.   
     Fakhir faced her and realized he shouldn’t have just guessed it, he should have _seen_ it too.  Granted, he hadn’t spent _that_ much time in Tutu’s company.  But he _had_ seen her.  And he’d seen this girl too.  Duck wasn’t a carbon copy of Tutu, it was true.  She was shorter, skinnier, far frumpier and more inelegant, a gawky _younger_ version.  And that was it.  Age.  Height.  Tutu was the grown-up picture of Duck.  
     She took a determined step forward.  “Just like me, you’re fighting to protect Mytho, aren’t you?”  
     He chose not to answer that with anything more than a scowl.  
     Duck’s chin lifted and he had another front-row seat to her stubborn and apparently boundless determination.  “Then why do you keep trying to shatter his heart?”  
     Fakhir glanced away, dismissing the question with a wave of his hand.  “That is something that has no bearing on the present situation,” he snapped.  “Understand?  The tale can no longer be halted.”  
     Duck’s eyes went wide and she took a moment to answer him, opening and closing her mouth several times before she found the right words.  He waited, again the picture of patience.  “The tale?” she finally mumbled.  
     Fakhir sighed.  He was suddenly weary of all this.  “If you wish to restore his heart, then go ahead.”  He started for the door, ready to be done with this encounter.  Class was starting in five minutes and they both needed to dress out anyway.  “No matter what the outcome of your little heroics, I will protect Mytho.”  
     She was silent a moment and against his own better judgement he glanced in the shattered mirror to see she was staring at his back in a very strange way.  Then she took a step after him, “Then why don’t we work together?”  
     Fakhir froze and that face flashed in his head again.  A face in the rain, transcendentally beautiful.  Every time he saw it the memory became clearer.  He thought it was only rain falling down her face.  But there was more.  There were tears.  It was his turn to open his mouth and have no sound come out.  He snapped it closed, cleared his throat, and balled his hands into fists.  “No thank you.”  
     She fell back the step she’d taken, reproached.  “But why not?”  
     This time Fakhir turned to face her, only a bit, enough to look at her over his shoulder and see the hurt disappointment on her face.  It _shouldn’t_ have stabbed him in the gut that he’d caused that look.  It did anyway.  “Put it simply, I don’t trust you.”  Then he turned his back on her for good and strode from the studio with more speed and force than necessary.  But he had to get out.  He had to escape.  From memory.  From mystery.  From _her_.

***

     _Everything’s upside down,_ Rue thought despondently as she walked beside Mytho.  Classes were over for the day and more’s the better.  She couldn’t have taken much more if their lessons had dragged on one second longer.  All around her, smiling happy faces.  The bitter rivalries hidden beneath painted expressions and sugary sweet insincerity.  Mytho with eyes that held too much.  Fakhir with eyes that held too little.  Her own face in the mirrors unrecognizable.  Shattered glass like shattered sanity.  Everything around her was cracking apart.  
     _Right and wrong._   Right because she was here and he was too.  Her arm was tucked through Mytho’s, her head resting on his shoulder as they strolled toward the Marktplatz under the watchful eyes of dozens of crows.  Something had shifted between them last night.  She felt it.  But it hadn’t shifted enough.  Because he was here with her, but he wasn’t really _here_ with her.  And that was wrong.   
     _He seems so distant.  He’s always seemed distant, but this is different.  This distance isn’t because he has no feelings.  No, this growing distance is precisely because he_ does _have feelings._ And his feelings were carrying him away from her.  _For I am a crow,_ she thought, the very thought cutting like a knife into her gut.  _Your enemy, even though I love you so much.  I wish I could have stayed Rue forever, free of Krähe’s memories.  But now…_  
     Now it was too late for that.  
     The sound of a hand organ cranking out the march of the automatons echoed across the small plaza, and Rue’s eyes tracked to it.  She spotted the street peddler standing under a tree and recognized her at once.  
      “Would anyone like some gems,” the organ grinder called out to passerby in her strange lilting voice.  “Would anyone like a gem to give your loved one as a gift?”  
     Mytho suddenly stopped, dragging Rue to a halt as well.  He’d gone tense beside her and she swung her gaze to his face.  He was also looking at the peddler.  
      “Welcome,” the woman said to him with a smile.  
      “You’re—” Rue started to say _Duck’s friend,_ but stopped herself.  She remembered the woman’s name.  Edel.  
      “It’s been a while Rue,” the woman greeted her.  
      “As a gift?” Mytho murmured.  He stepped up to the peddler and Rue had no choice but to follow him.  She glanced down at the tray of jewels, prepared to find fault with them, but in fact they were beautiful.  There was a pale bluish gem on a string, two emeralds, and an oddly colored golden stone to the left of a mirror.  On the other side of the mirror a chunky piece of quartz, an elusively glowing white stone on a string, and a strange star-speckled stone also on a string.  Rue thought the white stone was quite pretty.  
     Mytho’s eyes were riveted on the golden stone.  Aside from the ruby heart of it, the color almost perfectly matched his eyes and Rue thought it was an extraordinarily lovely piece.  
      “Has this one caught your fancy?” Edel asked, lifting out the amber jewel and holding it to the light.  Mytho stared at it with awe.  “The name of this gem is ‘love’,” the woman said.  
      “It’s love?” he asked in wonder.   
     A low growl of thunder shook the earth beneath their feet, and Rue felt a shiver run down her spine.  The way he’d said _love_ just now … as if he could _feel_ it.  She caught her breath.  “It’s beautiful,” she agreed on a murmur, feeling a painful tug against her heart.  
     Edel smiled a bit absently.  “Since you like it so much, I shall give it to you,” she offered, holding the gem out on the palm of her hand.  
     Mytho’s eyes finally tore from the gem to look at the peddler.  “Are you sure?” he asked, a little disbelievingly.  
      “I am,” she nodded, “Please take this as I have no use for it.”  
     Mytho hesitated.  “It looks valuable,” he resisted.  “I couldn’t.”  
     The peddler laughed emptily and Rue’s eyes narrowed on her.  No one else seemed to notice this woman’s innate _vacantness._ She looked around the plaza and could see that not a single soul was even paying them any mind.  Her gaze went back to the strange Edel and she tilted her head, studying the painted face.  She was a little too wooden.  A little too perfect.  Rue frowned.  A suspicion niggled at the back of her mind.  
      “I could not sell this gem,” the woman rebuffed Mytho’s objection.  “For if given it becomes priceless, and if sold it is rendered worthless.”  
     Rue shivered again at the woman’s words.  She looked from the gem to Mytho’s face.  It really _was_ the same color as his eyes.  An awful suspicion erected itself in her mind and she stared at the stone again.  That ruby center… could it be a shard of the Prince’s heart?  An arrow of hope pierced through her dull little world.  _What would the Prince do if Krähe returned a shard of his heart?_ she wondered.  _Not just any shard, but the heart shard of love_.  “Why don’t you accept it Mytho?” she asked, her fingers digging into his arm as a plan began to form in her mind.  
      “Okay,” he murmured, already reaching for it.  
     But before Edel released the gem to him, a shadow crossed the organ grinder’s face and her eyes flicked briefly to Rue.  “And yet, though this gem is strong, it is easily scarred.  Though beautiful, it is easily tarnished.  If fought over, it may prove deadly.  Please use care in handling it.”  And then she firmly placed the gem in Mytho’s outstretched hand.  
     Rue shot Edel a strange look.  Seriously, what was the hag trying to play at?  She dragged Mytho away.  He was staring at the gem sheltered in his palm with an odd expression on his usually impassive face and since he was so clearly enamored of it, he came willingly.  “You really like it that much?” she asked, feeling giddy with her forming plan.  
      “Yes,” his voice was soft, his thoughts a thousand miles away from her.  
      “So, you’re going to give it to me aren’t you?” she pressed.  She was fighting the urge to pluck it from his hand.  
     His eyes widened and he seemed to come back to the moment.  He stopped walking and Rue turned to face him.  “Rue,” he shook his head, “I’m sorry this is…”  
     The arrow of hope turned to bitter disappointment.  _A gift for your loved one._ That’s what the peddler had said.  That’s why Mytho had stopped.  But not a gift for _her._ Something inside Rue shattered, and she found herself surprised by that.  Surprised, because she didn’t think there was anything left to break.  Apparently she’d been wrong.  A shadow fell over her, that of a crow, and something cold and awful replaced the warmth she’d started to feel.  “I was just kidding,” she cooed, forcing the pain out of her voice.  “I wonder who the lucky girl is?”  
      “That’s not—” Mytho began.   
     She didn’t let him finish.  She couldn’t bear to hear what he might say.  “Could I see it for a second,” she asked, holding out her hand.  
     He looked at her, startled, but seemed to see nothing wrong with her request.  “Sure,” he hesitantly replied.  
     She plucked the gem out of his hand and held it up to the light.  It was quite a large amber jewel, a smooth cabochon that glowed in the light of the overcast day.  It was set in a graceful gold setting, a small sculpted gold rose on one side where a tiny diamond glittered.  “It’s beautiful,” she repeated.  “But it seems there’s something important missing.  I wonder what?”  
      “What?” Mytho demanded, concerned, “really?”  
     The something cold and awful inside her hardened, and the gem slipped from her fingers and fell to the paving stones.  Mytho gasped and bent down for it, but Rue was quicker.  She swiped it up and held it tight, “I’m sorry,” she apologized.  And her voice rang insincere even in her own ears.  She wondered if he even noticed.  “I know it’s precious to you.  Say, would you let me borrow it for tonight.  I’ll fix it up and make it even prettier so that you can secure the heart of the one you love.”  
     Mytho stared at the jewel in her hand, reluctant to release it, but he nodded a hesitant permission.  
     Rue’s lips twisted into a smirk that was all Krähe.  “The results will be sure to please you.”

***

      “It’s all coming together splendidly, puppet!” the spirit in his limbo shouted gleefully.  He was back in his rocking chair, rocking far back and cackling madly as he watched time unfold in the falling sands.  “What a splendid job you did today!  And my little crow, what a wonderful role!  Yes, yes, the stage is all set for tragedy now.”  He grinned widely and glanced at the woman standing beside him.  
      “Don’t you think it’s too soon to be celebrating?” she asked.  “There are several more shards left to return, and the sands are growing thin.”  
     He scowled.  “You do know how to ruin a good mood, don’t you?”  He waved at the sands, “Show me the girl!” he commanded.  
     At once they opened on a drafty little attic room, showing a girl sitting on her bed clutching a stuffed duck in her arms.  
     _“It was quiet today, wasn’t it?”_ she asked.  He wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or the duck, and it made him laugh again.  
     _“Fakhir found out, but it’s kind of strange.  I actually feel relieved now.  Fakhir is always thinking by himself, deciding by himself, fighting by himself.  Even crying by himself.  And he won’t show me his true face.”_ She cuddled the duck closer.  _“It was warm there in Fakhir’s arms.  I bet_ that’s _the real Fakhir.”_  
     The spirit rolled his spectral eyes.  “Ugh!  This is more than any mind should have to endure!”  He waved his hand over the sands again, “Show me something less annoying!”  
     The image in the sands shifted.  The prince’s room.  He and his roommate were both in their separate beds, both staring at the ceiling.  Both not sleeping.  
     _“Fakhir?”_ the prince spoke into the darkness.  
     _“Yes, what is it?”_  
     _“I’m thinking of giving a gift to Tutu.”_  
     Silence and then, _“Is that so?”_  
     More silence.  _“You’re not angry?”_  
     An irritated huff from both the spirit and Fakhir.  _“Do as you wish.”_  
     More silence.  _“Don’t turn your sword against Tutu again,”_ the last was spoken by the prince with conviction.  No answer.  _“Please Fakhir.  I want you to promise me.”_  
     _“I can’t make that promise.”_  
      “Enough!” the spirit shouted.  “Teenagers!”  This last he said as a curse.  “I said show me something, _less_ annoying!”  
     The capricious sands shifted again.  This time they showed a far more intriguing scene and the spirit stopped rocking and leaned nearer to the reflected image.  Krähe was standing before a table, placing the golden gem into the beak of a dead crow.  She lifted a raven’s feather, twisted it in her fingers, and then it shrank and melted into the surface of the gem.   
      “Much better!” the spirit cackled gleefully.  
     _“Mytho, I will not let anyone else have you,”_ she murmured, tears running down her cheeks now.  _“I’ll never hand you over.”_  
     The image faded away, the spirit tipped his chair back again and roared with laughter.  “What a perfect touch!” he gloated.  “Love filled with hatred!  My beautiful crow, I couldn’t have done it better myself!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The character seen at the beginning of this chapter was, in my mind, the most compellingly elusive untold story of the original Princess Tutu. A strange woman, likely based on the fairy tale Bearskin or Allerleirauh, surrendering a jewel called "love" with a single heartbreaking line. Fans of the series know that in the original telling of the story this character appeared only once in that scene on the bridge and then disappeared with no further thought or explanation. Of course, since this is the untold story, I couldn't let it go at just that...


	24. Der Prinz, der kein Herz im Leibe hatte

**_The Prince Who Had No Heart in His Body_ **

 

     From the shadows the veiled woman watched as Rue entered the chandeliered foyer of Gold Crown Academy’s administrative building.  Unseen, she dogged the girl’s steps as Rue passed into the landscaped quad beyond.  She watched the prima ballerina stride confident and unaware down the main path toward the ballet school.  A bright golden jewel dangled from a black velvet ribbon in Rue’s hand, and a small smile played across her face as she walked.  She had no indication of the faceless figure shadowing her every move.  
     Near the swan fountain Mytho stood waiting for Rue.  He turned as she approached.  
      “What do you think?” she asked, holding the bright jewel up for him to examine.  
     The Prince’s eyes went wide at the sight of it, shining with something akin to awe.  “It’s wonderful.”  
      “Isn’t it though?” she purred, but there was something off about the words.  
     The veiled woman pressed closer, keeping to the shadows of the shrubs, the day made darker by the thunderheads rolling in above.  
      “If you give this to the one you love, you’ll be able to secure her heart now and for all time,” Rue assured him.  A strange dark light reflected in her eyes and they seemed to flash, the deep brown going very briefly red.  
     Mytho didn’t seem to notice this.  
     The veiled woman did.  Her fists clenched in her skirts and her whole body went tense.  
      “Thank you Rue,” Mytho breathed, accepting the jewel.  As he took it, light seemed to whirl at its center tainted by a strange darkness.  It pulsed and burned, grew brighter, and then faded to nothing.  
     The veiled woman turned, facing a presence only she could see.  Eyes that remained hidden behind layers of silk seemed to burn through the fabric of time and space.  “He’s in danger, princess,” she spoke, and her words carried the weight of her warning.  “You must save him.  You’re the only one who can now.”

 

     Aria woke with a start, a cry on her lips as the strange dream burned its way through her mind.  The veiled woman’s words were still echoing in her ears and she sat upright, clutching her stuffed duck close to her chest as she struggled to slow her racing heart.  
      “A dream?” she asked the room at large, her voice sounding small and very scared.  “Or was it something more?”  A chill raced its way through her entire body.  _I have a very bad feeling.  
_      Off in the distance the low rumble of thunder shook dust from the ceiling and heralded an oncoming storm.  
     Aria threw back her covers and jumped down from her loft, landing lightly on the hardwood planks.  She tossed her duck back up onto the rumpled bed and reached for her clothes chest, her movements stiff and hurried.  She pulled out the first thing she could find, which was her school uniform.  It wasn’t a class day but that didn’t matter.  Aria dressed hastily, pulled her fingers through her hair, and bound the whole mass back in a ponytail that only barely kept the curls out of her way.  She was yanking on her shoes and socks as she flung the door open.  
     Piqué and Lillie almost fell into her room.  
      “No time to talk!” Aria shouted as she dashed past them, jerking an umbrella off the wall as she went.  
      “You were supposed to be at the Academy five minutes ago Duck!” Piqué shouted at her retreating back.  “Mr. Catt said you’d be pulled from the probationary class and expelled for real this time if you weren’t there the minute he showed up!”  
     Aria waved over her shoulder at Piqué knowing full well she had no intention of going to the Academy.  _Or wait._   She skidded to a stop at the head of the stairs.  _If the dream was real than Mytho is at the Academy right now!_    
     She started running again, taking the steps down three at a time, bursting through the dorm doors with so much force she toppled three of the girls from the senior class as they were on their way in.  She wheeled around the corner of the walk, sprinted to the gates, grabbed at the wrought iron with one hand to swing herself onto kanalgasse and hit a dead run.  Against her chest the pendant was burning, pulsing just as she’d seen that golden jewel do in her mind.  By the time she reached the bridge that crossed the canal it felt like it was practically on fire.  
     Aria grabbed at it, crying out as it seared her palm and stumbling to a stop.  The pendant thudded against her blouse and she looked down at the red mark it had left on her hand.  Since she was looking down, she missed the moment when Mytho strode off the bridge heading into town.  
      “Mytho!”  
     She looked up at the sound of the familiar voice to see Fakhir standing in the middle of the bridge.  Her head swung to see Mytho just as he disappeared down a side street.  Fakhir started after him at a hurried step, “Mytho, where are you going?” he called out, not even noticing her as he passed.  
     Aria moved forward to follow them and just as she did a heavy hand settled on her shoulder.  She jumped in alarm and swung around to see Mr. Catt standing behind her.  
      “I’m glad to see you took my warning to heart Miss Arima,” he lisped.  “Rue is practicing her Giselle composition in the main studio today, so you will use the small studio with Miss Baillieu who has agreed to come in this morning to oversee your detention.”  
     She stared at him blankly.  _I had detention?  
_      Mr. Catt frowned.  “Well what are you waiting for?  Go dress out and get to the studio.  You don’t want to keep Miss Baillieu waiting.”  
      “But sir—” she started, staring at the spot where Mytho and Fakhir had disappeared.  
     Mr. Catt drew himself up, his frown darkening into a very scary glower, “Did you not understand me when I warned that if you skip anymore classes or detentions or assigned sessions you would be expelled Miss Arima?”  
     _I don’t even remember him saying it!_   She danced from one foot to the other anxiously, “But—”  
      “Now!” he shouted, pointing at the school.  
     Aria jumped.  Some preprogrammed instinct to obey authority when it was levelled at her activated suddenly and she quickly turned toward the bridge and dashed into the school.  She threw one last longing look back at the side street, closing her hand around her now-cold pendant, and prayed the dream she had was only that.  A dream.

***

     From the moment he’d lain eyes on the golden jewel, Mytho knew exactly who it belonged to.  Who it was meant for.  _Princess Tutu._ Acquiring it was simple.  Harder was giving it to the one it was intended for.  Mytho had no idea how to find her nor any idea where to begin searching.  She’d been everywhere throughout Goldkrone Towne, showing up whenever he was most in need or wherever a shard of his heart seemed to lie.  But he had no idea where she went otherwise.  Where did she call home?  Where did she take sanctuary?  The elusive princess was as mysterious as the dark side of the moon.  And so he did the only thing he knew to do.  He started looking in all the places he’d ever seen her.  
     He’d started at the gazebo on the school grounds first, but it lay empty and shining in the morning light with no evidence that anyone had been there at all.  The library was filled with solemn students going about their studies, without her familiar face in the crowd.  The art school was bustling with projects in preparation for the summer showcase with no elusive figure in shimmering white silk.  The church was just emptying of those Saturday morning mass goers when he arrived, but there was no faery princess amongst them.  The park by the canal was occupied by picnickers, but no Tutu.  The hut in the forest that was Eberhild’s now bustling restaurant was vibrant with people when he arrived there.  The warm smells of food wafted through open windows while guests dined inside and on the patio outside enjoying the sun.  But none of those guests was the one he sought.  
     He wandered the town aimlessly, hoping against hope that coincidence or fate would bring her to him.  His course led him back toward the school, down kanalgasse, to a bridge he’d last crossed in the dead of the night.  On the other side lay the ruins of the manor where Princess Tutu had saved him from being dragged into death with a sprig of rosemary.  He stared at the bare bones of what had once been a grand house and something niggled at the back of his mind.  Something… something here he should remember.  
     Ghosts seemed to creep up around him as they had that night, but these weren’t the Willis seeking his destruction.  These were ghosts that lived only in his mind.  
     _“Sire, I’m not sure of this course.”  
_      _“He’s in there Pierce, and he has her.  I can feel it.”  
_      _“Consider what you’re risking.”  
_      _“I have.”  
_      Phantom voices seemed to echo in the still air around the manor, and Mytho found himself following them.  Something crunched under his shoes and he looked down.  Bones covered the ground, the fine fibrous bones of fowl.  A feeling like unease prickled down his spine as he raised his eyes and saw what looked like the remains of hundreds of birds.  _Not just birds, crows._   The thought seemed to trigger more of the ghosts.  
     _“It’s a trap!”  
_      _“Then we’ll spring it!”  
_      _A woman screaming.  
_      _“Get inside before they come back!”  
_      _A wall of darkness descending from the sky…  
_      Mytho kept walking toward the broken foundations of the main house.  He stepped up the cracked stairs and walked onto something that might have been a spectacular foyer long ago.  All around him, black and white checkerboard tiles of aged and cracked marble spread out onto something that looked less like a house now and more like a stage.  
     _“Stay here.”  
_      _“I can help!”  
_      _Desperation, thick and hot in his chest.  
_      _“No, I won’t risk losing you.”  
_      _“And what if_ I _lose_ you _?”  
_      The spectral traces of panic and fear expanded in his chest.  Mytho turned in place, watching as walls seemed to rise around him in his head.  He could almost see this place as it was and wondered how many years ago that might have been.  He could see the grandeur, he could sense the terror.  He could almost smell the blood seeping into stone.  
     _“Please…” he begs.  No plea will be enough.  “I love you.”  
_      _“I love you too.”  
_      _The feeling of sand slipping through his fingers.  
_      _Cold lips pressed to warm skin.  
_      _“You’ll never know how much I love you.”_  
     Mytho stared around at the stage as the ghosts crowded together in his head.  These were more than ghosts, he knew.  How much more he couldn’t be certain.  Delusions?  Fancies?  Memories?  Chills skated down his skin as he turned in place, taking in the desolation of this ruin.  He couldn’t shake the feeling that something awful had ended here.  And something more terrible had begun.

***

     It was early afternoon by the time Aria managed to make her escape from the Academy.  Miss Baillieu, sweet though she may be, was an even greater stickler for the rules than Miss Ziegenfuss, and the buoyant beginning ballet instructor had studiously kept Aria at the barre until Rue had hung up her pointe shoes for the day.  By the time she’d changed out of her tired old leotard and bolted from the school, she knew Mytho must well and truly be long gone.  But she _had_ to find him.  Unfortunately, since this morning her pendant had lain cold and unhelpful against her chest, giving her nothing to go on.  
     There was, however, one avenue she had to explore.  After all if the dream this morning had been anything more than a dream there was one person who could give her answers.  As much as it made her skin crawl to consider it, Aria knew where to begin.  She had to go back to St. Godfrey’s.  For there was no mistaking that the mysterious veiled figure in her dream was the same strange woman she’d met at the convent there.  
     Aria’s trek into town took her through the Marktplatz where the smells of food and the sounds of life warred against each other.  Over the din she heard a familiar voice peddling gems and she swung around, searching for a face in the crowd.  
      “Miss Edel!” she called out, skipping up to the organ grinder, gladder than she would have thought possible to see the mysterious peddler.  
      “It’s been a while,” the strange woman smiled at her, “hasn’t it?”  
     Aria didn’t have time for pleasantries.  The sick feeling that had begun in her stomach this morning with the strange dream had spread like a poison through her body all day.  “You haven’t happened to see Mytho anywhere around, have you?”  
     The woman turned her strangely blank, painted eyes on Aria.  “If you want Mytho he’s searching for the one to give his gift to,” she softy advised.  
     Aria blinked at this information.  “Mytho’s gift?” _He actually listened to Piqué and Lillie?  Nobody listens to them._   “So he’s looking for Rue?” she mused to herself.  That would make sense.  With his feelings coming back he probably wanted to know how Rue feels about him.  That must be it.  But if the dream was real, Rue was the one who gave the jewel to Mytho, which means if he’d meant it for her then he could have given it her then.  So it was just a dream and nothing more.  A little of the tension left her and she began to relax.   
     _But what if the gift is for Tutu?  
_      The stray thought made her whole body go tense once again.“That wouldn’t matter, because I’m just Duck.”   
     Aria said the words aloud to herself, almost as if to reassure that she had nothing to fear.  Several people walking by overheard and threw her strange looks and she had the grace at least to blush.  She looked up at Edel, but the woman gave her no reaction to go by.  “Miss Edel?”  Her voice sounded very small and childlike in her ears.  She didn’t even know what she was asking.  
      “To find the end go back to the beginning, to find the beginning go to the end.  For there is only one beginning and one end.”  
     That made absolutely no sense, but at the organ grinder’s words, Aria’s pendant began to burn.  “Thank you Miss Edel,” she said not even sure what she was thanking the woman for.  She closed a fist around her pendant and started to hurry away, trusting her feet this time to take her where she needed to go.  It didn’t take long for her to realize where that was.  Eberhild’s.  The Canal.  The Church.  All the places Tutu had met the Prince.  And finally to a bridge that crossed the canal into the bones of a rich estate.  
     There, standing on the raised foundation of a ruined manor house, Aria found Mytho.  He looked lost, staring out at the ruins, moving across them in a strange slow pattern as if he were in a trance.  It was like he was retracing some long ago steps.  It was almost but not quite a dance, and in her head a light flashed and for a moment she saw the vision as a battle, and then it was gone.  
     At almost the same moment Mytho looked up.  “Is that Aria?” he called across the empty space.  He stepped away from what he was doing and jumped lightly down from the cracked foundation.  “What are you doing here?”  
     Dumbstruck, Aria stared at him, realizing she had absolutely no reason to be here spying on him.  At least not as Aria.  “I—um, I was just, that is, I like to walk and I thought I’d walk this way and I’ve never seen this place but it seems kind of familiar, but it’s also kind of creepy, and then I saw you and I wondered what you were doing here and maybe you were lost but you didn’t look lost, you looked kind of like you recognized this place too and maybe you knew what it was.  Or maybe you don’t.  It just seems kind of strange.  And kind of creepy.  I said that already didn’t I?” the babbling words tripped over her tongue and Aria felt her face grow hot even as she struggled and failed to make herself shut up.  “Then I thought you looked kind of lost like maybe you were waiting for someone.  Are you?”  
      “Am I?” he asked, frowning at her as he clearly tried to parse out her rambling words.  
      “Looking for someone?”  
     His eyes lit up in understanding.  “Yes, for Princess Tutu.”  The light in those luminous eyes seemed to dim a little.  “Tell me Aria, do you know about Tutu?”  
     Her flaming cheeks flamed hotter and she wished she could crawl into the rubble of this place and die.  “What?  Oh, no, I don’t, but…”  
      “Oh,” disappointment weighed heavy on his words.  “I see.”  
     Aria stared uselessly at the umbrella in her hands wondering why she was even carrying the dratted thing around.  Clouds continued to swirl overhead and thunder had made itself known all day, but not a single drop of rain had fallen.  “Well, um… I’d better get going.  Piqué and Lillie are waiting.”  She trailed off lamely and looked up to see him watching her with a small frown on his face.  He was so beautiful it made her heart hurt.  “Here,” she said, handing him the umbrella.  “You might need this.  And I—I hope you see her,” she mumbled as she turned to disappear.  
      “Thank you,” Mytho’s words hit her retreating back.  
     She tossed him a smile and dashed away.  But not far.  Aria ducked behind a tree and did what she should have done before bursting into the clearing in front of the ruined house.  Gripping the burning pendant in her hand, Aria focused through the strangely hot tears that were burning behind her eyes.  _The one he wants to see isn’t Aria, it’s Princess Tutu.  But she isn’t real, is she?  I’m just Aria, just Duck, just_ a _duck.  But I’m also her, aren’t I?  Princess Tutu, she… she’s me.  Right?”  
_      Aria pushed that dangerous thought to the back of her mind and drew on the power of the pendant.  Between one moment and the next she transformed from the girl to the princess.  _It doesn’t matter,_ she decided.  _Mytho needs me to be Princess Tutu, so that’s who I will be.  
_      She stepped out from behind the tree and looked toward the ruined house.  It struck her with its stage-like appearance, the black and white checkerboard tiles gleaming in the dull late afternoon light.  Overhead the clouds seemed to gather closer.  A phantom pain throbbed at the center of her chest and she recognized it as her heart hurting.  She tried to push the hurt away, but the distant ache remained.  The stage seemed to pull at her, and almost without even thinking about it, she crossed toward it and jumped up onto those tiles.  They stretched out before her, entirely innocuous and strangely ominous.  “My Prince!” she called out.  
     Mytho, who was sitting now on a cracked step at the far end of the crumbling foundation, raised his head at the sound of her voice.   
      “Are you searching for somebody?” she called to him.  
     He rose to his feet, wonder evident on his face, and jumped lightly up onto the cracked marble tiles.  Overhead the sky cracked as well, and a light rain began to fall.  It turned into a mist through the leaves of the overgrown trees that arched overhead.  Mytho drew closer, opening the very umbrella she’d given him and holding it over their heads.  “Finally I get to see you,” he murmured.  His amber eyes were lit from within as he gazed down at her.  “There’s something I want to give you,” he said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out the shining gem she’d seen in her dream.  
     Princess Tutu stared at the golden jewel.  It was the exact shade of Mytho’s eyes.  “It’s lovely,” she gasped, entranced by the exquisite piece.  
      “I would like for you to accept this,” he offered it to her, and in her preoccupation with admiring the jewel she missed how the Prince was watching her face light up.  
      “If that is what my Prince wishes.”  She turned, almost shyly, while Mytho set the umbrella aside and draped the black ribbon around her neck, fastening it at her nape.  Her fingers played over the jewel lightly and she turned back to face him.  
      “It’s strange,” he said, eyeing the glistening jewel at her throat.  
      “What is?” she asked self-consciously.  
      “They said if you give someone a gift you’ll know how they feel, but I still don’t know how you feel.”  He frowned at her, “I don’t know what it is you think of me.”  
      “I—” the words locked in her throat.  The thought locked in her mind, and her heart began to race.  
      “Although it made you happy,” Mytho’s expression softened.  “So I think that’s okay too.”  
     Tutu’s eyes began to burn with tears again.  “My Prince,” she whispered, unable to get anything else out through the thickness in her throat.  The jewel at her neck began to pulse and throb at the same time the golden gem began to glow, and Tutu looked down at it in surprise.  She put the ends of her fingers to the golden gem and felt the warmth there.  “This is a heart shard,” she realized in astonishment.   
     Mytho’s face registered identical surprise.  
     She touched the golden gem again, and this time it burst into a dazzling red light shot through with bars of gold and white.  “Come on out,” she called to the heart shard.  
     The shard manifested before her, looking brighter than any of the others before it and quite taking her breath away with its brilliance.  The dull day seemed almost to turn sunny again in its presence.  
      “What feeling are you?” she asked it hesitantly.  
      “I am the feeling of love,” it answered.  
     Tutu’s heart skipped a beat and her breath caught in her throat.  “Love?”  
      “You are?” Mytho asked at the same time, equally shocked.  
     Tutu felt her hands shaking in excitement as she held them out toward the shard.  “You don’t have to wander anymore,” she promised.  “It’s time to return to where you belong.”  
     The Prince’s doppelganger smiled, rivaling the sun at noon in its radiance.  “I’m so glad,” it breathed.  “Inside that ornament it was so dark,” it started to brighten and rematerialize into a gem in her hands, its last words only a ghost of sound on the wind… “and the terrifying crows…”  
     Ice filled her chest as the jewel of the Prince’s heart formed in her palm.  _Crows?_   But before the word could register in her mind, Mytho had taken her hand and placed it against his heart.   
      “No!” she screamed.  Or tried to.  The sound never came out.  A heavy weight locked around her, sealing in her voice, and Tutu’s eyes went wide as the golden gem at her throat burst into bars of darkness that wrapped around her like chains.  They bound her arms to her body, wrapped around her legs, around her chest, around her throat… and started to squeeze.  
     At the same instant a feather shot out of the pendant and pierced the Prince’s heart where the jagged shard of love still protruded.  Mytho cried out in anguish, his eyes rolling back in his head as he fell to his knees.  
     More darkness wavered in the air and Tutu looked past the fallen Prince to the source of this new terror where Krähe suddenly appeared.  
     The crow princess smirked cruelly.  “The feeling of love is it?” she mocked, sauntering forward on swaying hips.  “I was hoping to dispatch Tutu with the gem but look what turned up.”  Her smirk spread into a smug smile.  “And now I know your true identity, _princess._ ”  She laughed maliciously.  “What a disappointment you turned out to be.”  She dismissed Tutu with a toss of her hair and advanced on the fallen Prince.  
      “Krähe,” Princess Tutu gasped past the restraints that were slowly choking the life out of her.  “What are you doing?”  
      “Isn’t it obvious?” Krähe tossed her a delighted smile.  “I’m killing you, and taking what’s rightfully mine.”

***

      “Damn it all to hell,” Fakhir swore, standing in the middle of the street and looking up and down in both directions.  “Where could he have possibly gone?”  
     He’d been tracking Mytho all day, ever since his roommate had left the school in the middle of their morning training.  When he’d lost the trail just after noon, a bad feeling had crept into his gut and he’d returned to the dorms briefly to change out of his conspicuous uniform and gather his sword before continuing the trek.  It was hours later now, the day had turned to shit, he was soaked through with rain and still no sign of Mytho anywhere.  He’d wandered up and down kanalgasse three times.  
     The trail had gone cold here, and Fakhir couldn’t fight the feeling that he was close.  His eyes went to the canal flowing steadily by and to the thick trees on the other side of the water just west of the school.  Through the rain he could see a commotion of wings on the far side of the canal and he narrowed his eyes at it, stepping closer to the low wall that protected the sharp drop into the water below.  
     Fakhir knew this town like the back of his hand.  He’d made it his business to know its every in and out, and he knew full well that nothing but ruins lay west of the school just there.  And yet he remembered something he’d seen a scant few weeks before.  A figure there on the far side of the canal, bending over something hidden in the rushes.  He’d called out to the person, but then strangely they had seemed to disappear.  Come to think of it, that had been right before everything had started falling apart.  Was it Krähe he had seen?  Was it Tutu?  Now, in almost the same place, he could swear he was looking at the growing mass of a murder of crows.   
     Following instinct, Fakhir turned toward the nearest bridge and crossed it with loping strides.  On the far side of the bridge he found himself on an overgrown estate of ruins, and up ahead he could hear a commotion.  The sound of a scream made his blood run cold.  
     _Mytho!  
_      Fakhir ran faster.  
     A stage appeared ahead with a grisly scene playing out upon it.  Mytho was kneeling at its center, a jagged black dagger protruding from his chest along with what appeared to be a glowing red jewel which Fakhir recognized on some level was a piece of the Prince’s heart.  Nearby Princess Tutu stood uselessly doing nothing, while Krähe sauntered toward Mytho unhindered.   
     Rage exploded in his head.  
     Krähe flicked a finger carelessly in Tutu’s direction, “Feast, my lovelies,” she commanded.  
     The murder of crows that was circling in coalesced overhead and dove toward Tutu.  
     Fakhir leapt onto the stage and started to turn toward the Prince, leaving Tutu to fend for herself.  But something made him turn back toward the girl.  Maybe it was the fact that she didn’t make a single sound as the birds dove toward her.  Maybe it was the look of stark fear on Mytho’s face.  Whatever it was, Fakhir turned in time to see Tutu crumple to her knees, then to her side on the marble stage.  It was strange the way she fell without even trying to catch herself and he saw at once why that was.  _Something_ was wrapped around her, thick and black, lashing her arms to her sides and her legs together and leaving her entirely defenseless.  
     Fakhir had pause enough to feel a flash of irritation that this was the second time he’d found her a captive of Krähe’s, and then against his better judgement he stepped between the charging birds and the fallen girl.  Blood rained down under the sharp edge of his sword, and heavy bodies dropped from the sky to the raucous chorus of angry cackles.  
     Krähe cried out at the slaughter and those left alive lifted on their ebon wings and retreated to the trees.  “You!” she swore angrily.  “What is this?”  
     Behind him he heard the faint, choked voice of Tutu.  “Fakhir?”  He chanced one glance back at her and saw that her face was as white as the gown she wore.  The black restraints which held her showing stark and ugly against her skin.  
     Krähe crept toward him and he focused his attention where it should be.  “Back off, you raven!” he spat.  He straightened up from his fighting crouch, taking a step forward over marble now slick with rain and blood.  He turned the sword over his hand, stretching his muscles and watching dark flecks of fluid fly from its edge.  “Stay away from Mytho,” he warned as she edged toward the Prince.  He wasn’t looking much better than Tutu.  Kneeling stricken, seemingly unable to move with the two objects impaling his chest.  
     _What the hell happened here??_    
      “What are you going to do about it?” Krähe sneered.  
      “Put this sword through your black heart, crow bitch,” he lashed back.  And he charged.  
     Krähe crouched, ready for him, and as he reached her she leapt over him, twisting in the air as she did and flinging a handful of black feathers toward his unprotected back.  In midair the feathers became deadly sharp blades.  
     Fakhir twisted on instinct, reversing his path and slicing the black blades from the air with a fury born of hate and rage.  
     Krähe snarled, “You’re better than I thought you would be.”  
      “And you’re uglier than I imagined,” he venomously returned.  
     She leapt toward him again with a hiss, but lost her footing on the bloody tiles and went down.  
      “Krähe!” Fakhir shouted, leaping forward to finish her off.  
     She looked up at him and panic replaced the hate on her face.  She cast her hand in his direction and a wave of darkness emanated from her fingertips.  It took on the form of a huge raven, its beak open and dripping with blood, winging toward him with glittering, hate-filled eyes.  
     Fakhir froze, visions of the knight ripped in two flashing in his head.  His heart made one leaden beat, and then the crow hit.

***

     Tutu struggled to breathe, to keep her eyes open, to see the fight between Krähe and Fakhir.  She watched the crow princess leap over Fakhir and throw daggers at his back.  She watched him spin and catch her attack.  The way he moved reminded her of watching him dance.  Tutu felt her heart leap when Krähe fell, and then watched in horror as the giant raven crashed toward Fakhir.  For some reason he froze, his sword held unmoving in his hand, and the giant bird hit him full force.   
     To her surprise, as it hit him, the giant crow shattered into a cloud of dust and darkness that wrapped around Fakhir whose face went pale as his eyes went wide.  He fell to his knees, the sword slipping from his fingers to crash against the cracked and bloody tiles.  He clutched at his face with both hands, lost in some nightmare in his mind.  
     Krähe climbed to her feet, recovering her confidence as she stared down at the cowering knight.  “Yes, I am Princess Krähe,” she proclaimed victoriously.  “I told you that I’d take whatever I want by force.”  
     Tutu struggled to her knees reaching for her power to free herself of her restraints.  A few cracked and decaying vines wiggled with life and inched over the molding tiles.  They withered as they neared her, seeming to die upon contact with the black bindings and a strangled sob caught in her throat as that hope withered with them.  
     Still, she inched forward despite her restraints.  The harder she fought them the tighter they became and she fought them anyway.  Her ribs squeezed painfully, she could barely expand them enough to draw air.  The circle looped around her neck felt like a garrote.  “What are you going to do Krähe?” she found strength to ask past the bindings.  
     Krähe’s head swung around, surprise on her face.  “Are you still alive?” she demanded.  
     In her moment of inattention, Fakhir managed to shake whatever nightmare she’d forced on him.  “Enough,” he growled, climbing back to his feet with sword in hand.  Whatever the illusory raven had done to him, he’d broken it.   
     Krähe whipped back toward him, “Just die already!” she commanded, gesturing angrily at the crows in the trees.  They dove from the branches and Fakhir was forced back under their weight.  He fell from the edge of the crumbling foundation, down into the overgrown yard below, pressed by the sheer force and number of evil black birds descending upon him.  Tutu could see nothing of Fakhir through the press of their bodies but the occasional flash of his sword.  
     Turning away from the battle, Krähe directed the full force of her attention on her hostage.  “How does it feel, Princess?” she purred.  “Is it hard to breathe?  Can you feel your flesh bruising?  Your bones breaking?  Your lungs collapsing?”  She bent down, putting their eyes on level.  “Do you like it?” she asked on a sneer, “Being bound by the Prince’s feelings?”  
      “What?” Tutu gasped, and the restraints holding her tightened further, cutting off her breath.  Pain exploded in her chest as something snapped as if in response to Krähe’s words.  She tried to scream but nothing escaped.  
      “It hurts doesn’t it?” Krähe’s smile turned wicked and cruel.  “Well that only shows how strongly he feels for you.”  She straightened and turned toward Mytho.   
     The Prince was bent over now, also struggling for breath.  He was holding himself up on one hand, his other pressed to where the dark blade was buried in his chest.  
      “How shameful,” Krähe scorned.  Leaning down she gripped Mytho’s face, bending him backward with one hand while she closed a fist around the jagged shard of love that held him immobile where it sat half buried in his heart.  Mytho’s face paled and Tutu tried to call out to him.   
     More pain as another crack burned in her chest.  She watched with wide eyes, unable to scream, unable to breathe, unable to look away as Krähe bent close to the Prince, her lips a whisper from his.  
      “You couldn’t protect your princess, could you my Prince?  You couldn’t protect any of them in the end.  But that’s okay.  You won’t have to protect me.  I’ll watch over you my Prince.  I’ll keep you safe.  Forever.”  She leaned in and pressed a kiss against his lips.  With excruciating slowness, she withdrew the shard of love from the Prince’s heart.  
      “No!” Tutu managed to rasp out, the word sounding hollow without any force behind it.  “Krähe stop!”  You love the Prince don’t you?”  Darkness gathered at the edges of her vision.  It was getting harder to stay awake.  The restraints around her chest tightened further and another scream caught in her throat.  
     Krähe straightened up from the Prince and released him.  Like a broken doll, he fell to the stage.  
      “Why,” Tutu mouthed the word, no longer having the air or strength to produce any volume.   
     Still, Krähe heard her.  “You’re such a naïve little girl,” she chuckled.  The sound was cold and merciless.  She took a step toward Tutu, then another.  
     _This is it,_ Tutu thought.  _This is how I’m going to die._   And even as she thought it another thought wove randomly in from the back of her consciousness.  _…but this isn’t the first time I’ve died here, is it?  
_      The last thing she saw before the world went black, was Krähe looming over her.  And behind the crow princess, all the rage of hell.

***

     _Mytho.  
_      _Tutu.  
_      They looked dead.  
     That was Fakhir’s thought as he cut the last of the crows from the air and leapt onto the stage.  Arms aching from swinging the sword grown heavy in his hands, eyes stinging from sweat and blood, bleeding from dozens of wounds, Fakhir roared in vengeance and charged toward Krähe’s unprotected back.  But she whirled as he came close and leapt aside before he could land a blow.  
      “Fool!” she screeched, leaping away from the sharp edge of his sword as it bit toward her again.  “Why won’t you die already?”  
     Fakhir ground his teeth together.  “Not before you pay!” he shouted back.  
     Krähe cried out as he managed to catch her, scoring a shallow cut across her flank.  “This isn’t over!” she growled, then twisted into a swift rond de jambe en tournant, and in a swirl of feathers swept across the stage.   
     Too late he realized her intention.  
      “No!” Fakhir cried out, but before he could reach Mytho, Krähe and the Prince were both gone.  He fell to his knees, the sword sliding from his suddenly numb fingers, slickened with blood.  “Mytho,” he choked.  _I failed you.  
_      He felt the force of that failure like a physical blow.  
     A whimper brought him back to himself and he turned toward the limp body of the girl.  She wasn’t dead.  He crawled toward her, eyeing the ugly black restraints which bound her, and finding what seemed to be their source:  a golden gem hung on a black ribbon around her neck.  He grabbed the black ribbon with one hand, drew a knife from his boot with the other, and sliced through it.  The restraints fell away and he tossed the jewel and its ribbon to the far side of the stage.  
     Two long seconds passed and then she gasped in a breath and her blue eyes flickered open.  Fakhir pushed away from her, stumbled a few steps across the stage and collapsed, succumbing to his own injuries.  “Mytho…” he murmured against the cool marble tiles where he lay.  _I’m sorry._   The last thing he heard was his name before blessed darkness dragged him down.

 


	25. Narrenspiegel

**_The Fool’s Mirror_ **

 

     Fakhir came to, mind muddled, visions of black beaks and blood still swimming in his consciousness.  He looked around, momentarily confused by his location.  He was lying in his own bed in the dorms.  The storm had passed outside and the moon had risen, washing the room in silvery light.  He looked around at the familiar shadows and surroundings.  It couldn’t have been a dream.  But then… _how did I get here?  
_      The last thing he could clearly remember was watching Krähe escape with Mytho.  He remembered the feeling of his failure like the weight of the world crashing down upon him.  He could still see the flashing red eyes of the crows, feel their sharp black beaks tearing at his skin, the ache in his arms as he cut them down one by one not seeing an end to the endless wave.  He was pretty sure he remembered seeing Tutu’s cold and lifeless body lying on the stage.  But she wasn’t dead.  
     Realization and recollection crashed in on him.  He remembered slender arms with surprising strength wrapping around him, lifting him up.  _She brought me back here._   He remembered her half-carrying him back in the dark.  Remembered his weary protests.  _“Let go of me,”_ he was pretty sure he’d cursed at her.  _“I can walk by myself.”  
_      He remembered her strained expression.  _“Just accept the help because I’m not letting go.”  
_      It all got foggy after that.  He held his hand up in front of his face.  The last time he’d seen it, it was covered in bloody gashes.  It wasn’t now, white bandages were wrapped around his wrist and arm.  “Binding my wounds?  What kind of a useless ge—” and that’s when he sat up and saw her.  
     She was kneeling beside his bed, her head resting on one folded arm, her other hand stretched out barely grazing against his feet.  Her eyes were closed, silvery lids underscored by dark bruises, a single curl of hair dark against her cheek.  Moonlight spilled over her and Fakhir wondered why he hadn’t realized her true identity sooner.  Perhaps because he’d never taken any notice of her before.  “Hey,” he spoke softly.   
     She didn’t move except for the soft rise and fall of her chest.   
     He looked closer and realized what he thought were shadows playing over her were actually bruises.  New bruises not yet darkened that crissed and crossed over her arms, around her neck and chest.  Bruises from the restraints which had bound her.  Hell, what kind of force had to be exerted to make bruises like that?  They had choked her.  Almost killed her.  
     He remembered that too.  He’d thought she’d just stood by and let Krähe attack the Prince.  But she hadn’t.  She’d fought against _that._   She’d even saved _him._ He recalled that too.  The way the vision of the giant raven had ignited terror in his mind, and the way that terror had lifted when she pulled Krähe’s attention off of him.  That realization made his blood run cold and his fingers curled into fists as she shifted and he got a better look at the ugly black bruises scoring her throat.  
     A nameless rage kindled in his chest at the sight of her injuries and he frowned.  _What the hell?  Why would I care what happens to her?_ Hadn’t he tried to kill her himself?  He shook his head, trying to clear it of strange emotions at play.  
     Tutu stirred restlessly, roused by his movement, her eyes opening as she took in her surroundings in confusion.  Then she looked up at him.  “Fakhir?”  Her voice was hoarse and he hated that too.  He looked away, trying to contain his own wayward emotions.  Seemingly embarrassed, she sat up, withdrawing her outstretched hand.  “How are you feeling?”  
      “Why are you still Tutu?” he asked instead of answering her question.  
     She looked down at herself in surprise, “Oh, I didn’t think it was a good idea to go into the boy’s dorm looking like normal.”  
     He furrowed his brow, “What are you talking about?  You always look like that.”  
     She gazed at him perplexed, “I do?”  
     No, actually she didn’t.  She rarely looked that neat and put together.  Except just now in her current state Princess Tutu looked a lot like the girl she truly was.  
     He sniffed and turned his face away.  “Sorry for having troubled you with this.”  
      “It was no trouble,” she hurried to assure him, half reaching toward him again as if it were natural to do so.  Abruptly he swung his legs off the bed almost as if to avoid her.   
     She had to scramble aside as he did, wincing when she moved too quickly.  “Are you sure you’re okay to get up?”  
      “I don’t need your assistance,” he snapped.  
     Her temper flared at once, “Maybe I should have let you bleed to death in the woods, then?”  
      “I didn’t ask for your help!”  
      “And I didn’t ask for yours!” she leapt to her feet, face screwed up in anger.  Almost immediately her face went white and she pressed her hands to her sides.  
     Fakhir narrowed his eyes at her, “Are _you_ okay?”  
      “I’m fine,” she snapped, despite the fact he could see she wasn’t.  
      “What happened?” he asked on a weary sigh.  
      “Krähe,” she bit out through clenched teeth.  
      “I meant…” he trailed off, gesturing lamely at the way she was holding herself.  
      “Nothing,” she practically spat the word.  “Just a few bruises.  I’ll get over it.  You’re the one who left a trail of blood all the way down kanalgasse.”  
     He felt his face and his temper warm at that and turned away from her.  He should have known she’d be this antagonistic.  He wanted to spit insults back at her but he curbed his darker nature and bit his tongue.  He knew what the right thing to do right now was, and that was to thank her for her help.  Pride wouldn’t let him.  So instead he gripped the windowsill and stared out at the moon.  “This doesn’t mean I’m going to cooperate with you.”  
     He felt her anger dissipate from the room as if it were a physical thing.  “But you’re going out to look for Mytho aren’t you?”  
     Fakhir turned back toward her and froze for a moment.  Her eyes had gone wide and earnest, and for a second he saw the flash of that face in the rain again.  To cover his reaction he glared at her.  “What makes you think that?”  
     She frowned, “Because that’s what you always do.”  
     Fakhir scowled at her logical answer.  _She’s… different._   He realized.  Not the useless babbling eyesore.  Not the futile princess.  Something—something more.  
      “Look,” she sighed, “I’m going to go looking for him and you’re going to go looking for him, so why don’t we at least cooperate on that?”  
      “No.”  The word came out harsher than he’d intended and he winced as she flinched away from him.  “You’re hurt,” he pointed out.  
     Tutu scoffed, “And you’re the pinnacle of health at the moment?”  
     Fakhir’s eyes widened.  _Sarcasm?  
_       “Fine!” she flung the word at him, “I’ll go out by myself!”  She spun on her heel to start for the door but didn’t even make it half a step before making a pained sound and clutching at her sides again.  
      “What the hell?” Fakhir burst out, crossing toward her.  Without thinking he reached for her wrist and started to pull her hand from her side.  Her face went even paler and she jerked her hand back.  It was clear he had hurt her, and though that hadn’t been his intention, he felt it like a sharp stab to his side.  
     He swore.  
      “She broke your ribs.”  
      “It’s nothing,” she gasped.  
     _Damn it._   “I’ll go with you,” he said.  
     Her eyes went wide.  “You will?”  
     _If it keeps you from hurting yourself,_ he thought but didn’t say.  “In the morning.  We could both use some rest."  
     She swallowed visibly, her eyes assessing him as if for the truth.  “Promise?” she asked.  
     He swore again.  Then nodded.  “Promise.”

***

     Krähe lay beside Mytho on a bed of black feathers reveling in her victory over Princess Tutu.  It should have been everything she’d ever dreamed of.  It wasn’t.  She looked over at the Prince, studying the sharp profile of his face as he stared unseeing toward the shadowy ceiling.  His mind seemed to be a million miles away from her.  
     She pressed closer to his side, draping her leg over his and reaching up to trace patterns against his cheek.  “You can forget about everything,” she murmured to him.  “All you need to fill that void is here in my arms.”  As if to demonstrate that she raised herself up, cuddling even closer until her body pressed against his from chest to toes.  “No one shall enter here,” she vowed to him.  “It will be just you and me.  So I am the only one you have to give your love to.”  His eyes remained unfocused.  Distant.  Krähe felt the stirring of something bitter inside her.  “Now tell me that you love only me.”  
     Mytho didn’t look away from the distance as he blinked at her.  “I love only you Krähe,” he answered robotically.  “Nobody else.”  
     Krähe stiffened.  “Honestly?”  
      “Honestly.”  
     She stared into his eyes, eyes that rippled with amber and gold in the sunlight, but here in the shadow were a flat whisky-brown without any warmth or life.  “How much?” she asked, a desperate edge to her voice.  
     He didn’t answer her.  
     The desperation grew stronger.  “If you love me then smile for me.”  
     No reaction.  
      “Don’t you remember the festival?” she pleaded.  
     He just stared into the distance.  “How?”  
     All her hopes and joy at victory shriveled in her chest and she sat up.  Tears stung at her eyes.  “Have you regressed to the doll you used to be?” she implored, wanting to wail and rage but only able to beg.  “Because I withdrew that piece of your heart, have you shut out all your other emotions because of that?”  
     There was no answer.  
     Krähe angrily wiped tears off her cheeks.  “If that’s true then fine,” she blurted out.  “If you’re going to love someone else, better for you not to love anyone.  It’s your fault you know, you wouldn’t so much as look at me when I love you so much!”  
     Mytho said nothing.  He didn’t move.  He didn’t even blink at her outburst.  
     Krähe felt that bitter _something_ grow into a ball of blackness inside.  She turned his face toward hers.  “No, you’re not to blame,” she whispered.  “That’s right.  If you hadn’t begun to regain your heart everything would have progressed like it should have.  I wouldn’t have remembered that I—that I was really a crow.”  Her eyes narrowed into slits, “It’s that little nuisance who’s at fault.”   
     She collapsed against his shoulder, “The sooner I get rid of her the better for us.”  Stroking a hand across his face she sighed again, “A single Prince has no need of two princesses.  Isn’t that right?” she smirked toward the shadowy ceiling, casting her words up into the darkness, “Herr Drosselmeyer?”  
     The spirit looking on from the sands of time stirred in surprise, _“Impossible!  Did I just hear her call my name?”  
_       “You’re watching from somewhere, yes?” she purred.  
     The spirit found himself grinning, oddly proud of his little protégé.  “ _You are more formidable than I believed to have caught on to me.”  
_      Krähe smiled coldly, “Formidable enough to offer you the best story ever,” she promised.  
     The spirit moved closer to the shifting sands, curious now.  _“I don’t believe you.”  
_       “The best of stories demands the best of endings,” she explained idly, “And for that I need a worthy stage.”  
     _“You’re right,”_ he answered her tauntingly.  _“And it just so happens I know of just such a stage, a lake that no one has visited in 200 years.”_   The specter clasped his hands together and rocked back in his chair. _“Do allow me to show you the way…”_

***

     Aria wasn’t entirely sure why Fakhir had finally agreed to work together, but part of her was glad that he had.  It was… nice having someone on her side for once.  Someone who knew everything—almost everything, at least.  Even if that someone had to be someone like Fakhir.  She didn’t know why he’d suggested they rest first though.  She figured he would have been burning with need to search for Mytho.  Or maybe he was tired from his injuries.  Or maybe he thought she was.  It didn’t matter, she was glad of the respite even if it was only for a few hours.  Still, she was afraid come dawn as she waited in the courtyard for him to join her, that maybe he had taken off without her after all.  
     The bells of St. Godfrey rang the time for the early Sunday mass and she jumped.  Jumping pulled at her ribs and she winced.  _Stupid, stupid duck!_   She berated herself, rubbing against her sore side and struggling to breathe normally.  _How long does it take broken ribs to heal?_ Because this was really annoying.  
      “You should take something for that.”  
     Aria started and spun and winced again.  
     Fakhir frowned, “Easy,” he growled at her.  “Lord have mercy, but you’re impossible.”  
     It was her turn to frown, “I don’t know what you mean.”  
      “Just try not to kill yourself in the next twelve hours,” he grumbled.  He’d changed into a clean version of what he’d worn last night.  A dark shirt, matching dark pants, black boots.   
     The black on black look kind of suited him but she didn’t want to tell him that.  Especially after his last comment.  “So where do you think we should start looking?”  
     He didn’t answer, leaving her to tag along as he set a rapid pace.  The answer became apparent soon enough anyway.  Everywhere.  In a few short hours as the sun rose to a respectable level, they’d pretty much swept the salient parts of the town.  They even returned to the ruined manor, and in the shadowy dawn light Aria could make out just enough of the battleground to shudder in revulsion.  Dead crows lay everywhere, and she noted with surprise that even Fakhir averted his eyes from the carnage.  
     By midmorning they’d searched all the likely places, and all the unlikely ones too.  Standing in the north gate tower, Aria gazed out of Goldkrone Towne in desperation.  “He’s not around,” she murmured worriedly.  
      “Of course he is,” Fakhir sighed tiredly.  “It’s just that we haven’t been able to find him.”  
      “What about school?” she asked.  
     He looked at her like she was nuts.  
      “Well he might be practicing or something,” she shrugged.  
      “And why is that?” he asked her darkly.  
      “I don’t know!” she threw up her hands in frustration, wincing at the sharp move and reminding herself for the umpteenth time that morning not to do that again.  “Because Mytho loves to dance, so maybe—”  
      “I don’t think he’ll be there,” Fakhir cut her off coldly.  
     Aria fought the urge to ball up her fists and shout at him.  “Last time he was taken he was back before we knew it, right?”  Fakhir didn’t answer.  “So I thought it might be the same again this time.  Besides,” she turned away, staring down at the town again sadly, “I can’t think of anywhere else, can you?”  
     Fakhir was silent for a long minute.  “We can check it out,” he said at last, leading the way.  “We’ve nothing to lose.”  
     He threw her a look, “Unless you’d like a break.”      
      “I’m fine,” she bit back at him.  
     He rolled his eyes but said nothing.  
     Which was fine by her.  Honestly, unless she was a duck, her favorite kind of Fakhir was the silent kind.   
     It didn’t take them long to reach the school from where they were, and as they were crossing the quad they both heard the sound of the gramophone playing from the open windows of the upper studio.  Aria’s steps stuttered to a stop and she exchanged a shocked look with her unlikely partner.  “Is that Mytho?”  
     As one they both started running.  Fakhir took the outdoor staircase two steps at a time.  Aria took it considerably slower, wheezing a bit as she did and regretting her sprint across the quad.  Fakhir threw her another frown as he waited for her by the window.  He signaled her to silence, then gestured toward the clear glass panes and she peered past him to see not Mytho but Mr. Catt practicing alone.  
     She sagged in defeat.  “I thought for sure it would be him.”  
      “But it wasn’t,” Fakhir sighed.  He ran a hand through his hair.  “It was worth looking anyway.  And since we’re here we should search the grounds.”  
     Aria closed her hand around her pendant.  She’d tried all morning, but it was cold and useless still.  “Okay,” she agreed.  She was surprised when Fakhir put a hand to her elbow and turned her carefully toward the stairs.   
      “What’s that for?” she asked him pointedly.  
      “To keep you from hurting yourself,” he sniped back, “Utterly useless.”  The latter was spoken under his breath.  
     She jerked her elbow away.  “Look, it’s not like I don’t know what you think of me,” she hissed at him.  
      “And what do I think of you?” he asked, clearly humoring her, which only served to feed her temper.  
      “You think I’m useless.  And a nuisance.  And an eyesore.  And probably about a thousand other ugly things.  But I don’t care.  I’m going to help Mytho with or without you.”  
      “Which you’ve abundantly proved,” he retorted.  “Regardless of your own safety or self.  Tell me, how many times has Krähe almost killed you?”  
      “Hey!” she shouted, “Before she showed up I was doing pretty good on my own!”  
     They were standing at the crown of an arched bridge that spanned a small creek on the path toward the gazebo.  Fakhir stopped and looked down at her, arching a brow.  “Is that so?”  
     Aria felt her cheeks flame.  “You don’t have to babysit me,” she growled.  “If that’s what you’re doing then just leave me alone!  I’ll find Mytho with or without you!”  She turned away from him and started back up the path into the woods, leaving him staring at her back.

***

     Amused, Fakhir watched the girl stomp off.  He followed her a few paces behind, shaking his head.  Cripes she was a nuisance.  And she _was_ an eyesore.  She hadn’t even brushed her hair, and that mat of curls was still filled with debris and grime from the day before.  Not that he’d had much of a chance to clean up either.  But still.  Her blouse was buttoned crooked, and he hadn’t wanted to tell her that her jacket was inside out, but every time he looked at it Fakhir had to fight back the urge to laugh.   
     She was useless at a lot of things.  Looking decent being one of them.  Biting her tongue being another.  Caring about Mytho was definitely not on that list though.  Nor was helping him.  And he was withholding opinion on her capability to do so at least until after this little joint venture.  After all, she _had_ managed not to get herself killed.  Yet.  
     They stepped into the clearing with the gazebo where he’d first noticed the signs of Princess Tutu’s power.  He had been impressed at the scope of that power, and frankly it was impressive.  She hadn’t been trained to fight, that much was clear.  But things like that could be learned.  His mind was distracted by that line of thinking and he didn’t notice at first the cold feeling creeping over him.   
     Fakhir moved by instinct, rushing forward several steps until he was in front of the girl.  She shot him a look as he cut her off, but at the sight of his face she swallowed back her sharp words.  Fakhir scanned the little clearing with sharp eyes.  Something was very, very wrong.  He stopped suddenly as something moved up ahead.  
      “Hello there,” a familiar voice rang out.  
     Aria froze, “Mytho?” she breathed.  “You’re okay!” she exulted.  
      “Wait!” Fakhir ordered, grabbing her arm to stop her as she moved toward the Prince.  He didn’t even have time to feel guilty as she winced at the tug against her cracked ribs.  Something was _very_ wrong.  He closed one hand over the hilt of the Lohengrin blade at his belt.   
     Mytho swung away from the pillar he’d been leaning against, a cold cruel smile upon his face.  “Do you know the story of the Prince and the Raven?” he asked in a singsong voice.  “It’s a tale of a brave prince who battles a monster raven.”  He struck a pose, mimicking the raven.   
     Aria cringed back and Fakhir’s hand tightened on her arm.  He moved ever so slightly, just enough to put him between her and Mytho.  
      “There was a knight whom the prince trusted,” Mytho went on coldly, “but that same knight was torn in two by the claws of the raven without the knight even landing a single blow with his sword.”  Mytho’s face glowed, his expression twisting, “A useless wretch, who could only talk of protection.”  
     Fakhir watched his friend, feeling the words tossed back at him like blows.  Hadn’t he said those same things to Mytho?  Useless.  Wretch.  Who had he been talking about?  The Prince?  Or himself?  
      “That’s why the Prince suffered such hardship,” Mytho sneered.  “The raven leapt out of the story and alone he pursued it, and alone he sealed it away.  Of his own will he used a forbidden power.”  Mytho knelt on the ground, miming his story with his movements.  “That’s right, the Prince took his sword and drew his very own heart out of his body,” with a plunging motion, he pounded his fist against his chest.  
     At his side the girl made a sudden choking sound and Fakhir looked down at her in concern.  Her blue eyes were wide, her face pale, she had her free hand pressed tightly against her heart as if the Prince’s story were causing her physical pain.  Anger suddenly surged through him and he released her arm, taking hold of his sword instead.  A strange urge thrilled through him that he couldn’t begin to understand.   
      “Do you like the story?” another voice intoned, and Rue stepped out from behind a pillar.  
      “Rue?” the voice came from behind him, shocked and questioning.  
      “You don’t know anything, do you Duck?” Rue chuckled, taking Mytho’s hand as he stood beside her.  “What do you know about Princess Tutu?”  
      “Princess Tutu?  Nothing!  I mean, I don’t know anything really…” she stammered nonsensically.  
     Fakhir stood frozen, transfixed as two different instincts were warring inside of him.  A lot of things were clicking together in his mind.  Seeing Rue with Mytho just now made it all clear and he knew who the crow was.  He also knew that he should be drawing his sword and cutting her away from the Prince.  But at the same time, he couldn’t move because another instinct was holding him in place.  The face in the rain flashed behind his eyes again.  He had the sure and certain instinct that if he moved even one step away from the girl, Krähe would strike at her.  
      “You see,” Rue was speaking, “in the Prince and the Raven, Princess Tutu is only presented in a few sentences.  A miserable existence, which none of the characters in the story wanted to take on.  An insignificant existence which even the story left by the wayside.  Someone who could never hope to catch the Prince’s eye.  Just a little added flourish, poor thing!”  
      “But Rue, why are you telling me this?” the girl demanded, perplexed.  She took a step toward the prima ballerina.  
     Fakhir moved with her almost automatically, keeping himself between her and the others.  A muscle worked in his jaw as he tried to battle his own instincts and lost.  _Who am I here to protect?  Mytho or Princess Tutu?  
_      Rue laughed a silvery laugh, “So you still haven’t figured it out?”  Her face suddenly became cold, “Rue doesn’t even really exist.”  Suddenly the Mytho who stood beside Rue darkened, his form disintegrating into black dust that reformed on Rue’s outstretched arm as a raven.  Fakhir didn’t know if he was relieved or enraged to learn Mytho hadn’t really been here.  Rue smirked smugly, “Now have you figured it out, Princess Tutu?”  
      “Princess Krähe?” her voice was stunned.  “No way, you can’t be because you’re my friend!  We used to chat together and dance together and—”  
     She had started forward in her outburst, and Fakhir reached out, quick as a snake, to hold her back.  “Stop!” he cried out in alarm.  
      “That’s true,” Rue shrugged lightly, “But the time has come to put an end to all that foolishness.”  
     A sudden wind struck them, causing Fakhir to stumble back.  The girl held her ground, “Rue please!” she shouted over the wind.  
      “I only came to retrieve something the Prince left behind,” Rue announced suddenly, “So I will take my leave now.”  
      “Left behind?” Fakhir spoke up in surprise.  
      “It’s not something for a mere failure of a knight to have in his custody,” Rue gloated, transforming suddenly into Krähe.   A crow circled over the gazebo, coming to alight on her shoulder.  In its claws it held…  
      “The Prince’s sword!” Fakhir gasped.  “When did she get th—”  
      “Rue no!” the girl cried out.  
      “Hurry up and come rescue the Prince!” Krähe called back laughing as she flew away on a swirling wind.  
     Fakhir stood stunned watching her go.  She’d been right there and he’d done nothing.  Nothing except… his eyes fell on the girl at his side.  _What the hell is going on?_

***

     Aria stared after Krähe in shock, her head pounding, chest aching, and this time she wasn’t sure if the hurt in her heart was physical or something else.  Something worse.  Something like betrayal.  Fakhir had been strangely silent through the entire encounter, and she rounded on him suddenly.  “Why didn’t you do anything?”  
     His face paled and his eyes blazed.  “Me?” he growled.   
      “You’re the one with the sword!” she burst out.  
     His eyes went wide.  “What did you think you were playing at, _Duck?”  
_      She winced.  “Don’t call me that!” she shrieked.  
     Fakhir’s face registered genuine surprise.  “Why not?” he asked.  “It’s your name isn’t it?”  
     Tears stung at her eyes.  “No.  It’s not.  _You_ gave me that nickname.”  
     He blinked at her.  “What?”  
      “My name is Aria.  Call me Aria.”  She was about to fling more accusations his way but just then a familiar sound burrowed its way into her consciousness.  “Miss Edel,” she breathed, taking off back up the path toward the quad.  
      “Hey, wait!” Fakhir called after her.   
     She didn’t stop or slow down.  Not even the burn in her chest was enough to give her pause.  Aria found Edel standing by the swan fountain and only then did she slow her steps, clutching at her aching sides with both hands.  
      “Water is drawn to fire, fire to darkness, and darkness to silence,” Edel greeted in her characteristically obtuse way.  
     Fakhir slid to a stop beside her, his eyes narrowed on the organ grinder and then back on her.  “What the hell?” he demanded.  
      “She knows things,” Aria waved away his unspoken questions.  “She’ll help us.”  
      “You’re that woman from the Antiquariat,” Fakhir accused Edel.  
     She tilted her head toward him.  “Happiness or glory, to be or not to be, that is the question.”  She turned and started leading them away.  “Come, let us go,” she invited.  
      “Go where?” Aria asked.  
      “To where you must go.”  
     Fakhir glared at her retreating back.  He grabbed at Aria’s elbow as she tried to follow.  “Hold up, you’re just going to trust her?”  
      “She helps me!” Aria burst out again.  “She helps Princess Tutu.”  
      “Why?” he demanded.  
      “I don’t know,” she shook off his hand.  Edel was still walking away and she hurried to catch up.  
      “Wait!” Fakhir called after her.  
      “She just does,” Aria answered, still following the strange woman.  
      “Fine, whatever,” Fakhir growled.  He fell into step beside her but didn’t look happy about it.  
     Edel led them to the old town prison near St. Godfreys.  
     Aria looked up at the blank side of the building, “This place … um, Miss Edel?”  
     Fakhir picked up the padlock on a nearby door, “It’s locked.”      
     But Edel wasn’t facing the door.  She was facing the corner of the building where carved into the bricks was the face of a jester under which was inscribed the words Nün sind ünser zwey.  
      “Now we are two,” Fakhir read aloud.  “Great.”  
     Edel didn’t say anything.  Instead she opened her jewel tray and withdrew a green jewel, inserting it into a small opening in the carving.   
     Aria retreated a step as the grinding sound of cranks echoed out of the wall.  One panel of the stone wall slid away and a secret stair was revealed.   
     Edel turned to face them both, no expression beyond her usual benevolence on her face.  “You can go to where the Prince and Krähe are from here.”  
      “A secret passage?” Fakhir gaped at it.  
      “Go on,” Edel urged.  
     Aria smiled at the organ grinder, “Thanks a lot Miss Edel, for always being so kind to me.”  
      “This is not kindness,” Edel replied, not looking at her.  
     A chill raised the hairs on her arms.  “What?”  
      “Puppets follow the pull of their strings.”  
     Aria didn’t comprehend, “Puppets?”  
      “Yes,” she confirmed, “I am a puppet.”  She looked down at Aria then, “I possess neither feelings nor a heartbeat.”  
      “But Miss Edel,” Aria was aghast, “You’ve taught me all sorts of things and you’ve been so friendly and so I think of you like a—”  
      “You think of me like that because that was the role I was appointed.  My orders end here,” she gestured at the opening, “Now go on, Duck.”  
      “Whose orders?” Fakhir asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.  
     Edel didn’t answer.  
     For some reason Aria felt tears in her eyes, “Miss Edel?”  
      “Now go on,” the organ grinder repeated.  
     Aria suddenly threw her arms around Edel’s waist.  
      “Duck?” Edel looked down at her in surprise.  
      “Thank you, Miss Edel,” she murmured, feeling her chest constrict.  “We’ll go now.”  
     Something almost like an expression of longing came across the puppet’s face.  “Duck,” she lifted her hand to Aria’s cheek, “Such a warm face, such soft skin,” for the first time a light of something flared in Edel’s eyes.  “True hope is swift, and flies upon swan’s wings.  Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.”  
     Unlike her other riddles, Aria recognized that quote.  It was from Shakespeare wasn’t it?  Or at least it almost was.  “Miss Edel I don’t understand—”  
     Edel turned away, “Now, you must hurry.”  
     Fakhir stepped around Aria toward the entrance, “Come on,” he urged her carefully.  “Let’s go.”  He had to duck down to crawl into the stairwell ahead of her.  
     With one last look back, Aria followed him into the darkness.

 

     Edel watched them go, an expression almost like sorrow in her expressionless eyes.  The stone passageway closed behind Aria and Fakhir, leaving the puppet Edel staring at the stone jester carving.  For a moment all was stillness and silence, and then the eyes of the jester began to gleam, and it turned its stone face toward the puppet’s blank expression.  “A jolly good morn to you!” the stone carving spoke, “And what is it I can do?”  
      “Passage to the ancient hall,” Edel spoke in her soft voice.  
     The jester’s carved stone eyebrows jiggled up and down.  “Passage can be bought, but at an awful price, for one to pass safely through another one must die!”  
      “So be it,” she sighed.  
     The carving cackled, the jester bouncing up to stand on its head, then flipping back around.  Its laughter echoed hauntingly around the abandoned square.  “And there are those who call me the fool!  But look at us, where once was one, now there are two!”  It cackled again gleefully, and as the last vestiges of the stone jester’s laughter faded into the clear blue sky, the carving hardened once more into what it was before.  
     Edel’s painted eyes drifted over the empty street, and she almost absentmindedly began to turn the barrel organ’s crank.  Not far away, at the height of the bell tower that rose into the sky over St. Godfrey’s square, a single figure in purple and black was framed, the wind whipping her veil against her face.  Edel stood passively, turning the crank as the tinny rendition of Coppellia rose into the air, almost but not quite covering the sound of a woman’s agonized scream ringing out in the distance before being cut brutally short.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the town of Nordlingen, Germany on which the animators based Goldkrone Towne, there really is a carving dating back to the 17th century known as the Narrenspiegel under the stairwell on the side of the Rathaus (town hall) adorning the entrance of a detention cell with the words "Now there are two of us" inscribed in German below it. It is one of many unique architectural features and quirks of Nordlingen which was featured in the anime. To my knowledge, however, it does not habitually come to life and quote vaguely threatening rhyme.


	26. Östlich von der Sonne und westlich vom Mond

**_East of the Sun and West of the Moon_ **

               

     Fakhir spun as the grinding sound of gears and cranks controlling the stone panel suddenly reversed direction and the slab of shifting wall began to slide back into place.  He pushed past his erstwhile companion and dashed for the thinning sliver of natural light beyond the sliding stone, but barely reached it before the last trace of daylight was irrevocably cut off.  “Damn it!” he swore, pounding an impotent fist against the ancient stone.  
      “Fakhir?”  The girl’s voice grated against his nerves.  
     Cringing, he braced himself against the wall with both hands, struggling to calm his racing heart and still his boiling blood.  
      “This is bad right?”  
     He cursed again and pushed away from the wall.  “You’re the one who chose to trust a puppet,” he growled.  
     The girl’s eyes went wide.  “I didn’t know she was a puppet!”  She chewed her lip, “And she’s never led me astray before.”  
      “Before locking you up in a mysterious hidden tunnel that doesn’t look like anyone’s entered it in over a century?”   
      “If she says this is the way to Mytho then I believe her.  We just have to keep going, that’s all.”  
     Fakhir glared at her.  “And if this isn’t the way to Mytho then your little _friend_ just locked us into what’s going to become our tomb.  Probably a lot sooner than later.”  
     Her face went white and her lips thinned as she clenched her fists at her sides.  _This_ he remembered.  He recalled the girl who’d assaulted him outside the theatre—the headstrong, unshakeable, self-appointed advocate—and relaxed a little.  _This_ version of her he could contend with.  
      “You are _horrible!”_ she threw the word at him as if it were the vilest four-letter expletive of any language.  
     For a moment Fakhir had to fight the urge to laugh.  “We’re wasting time,” he muttered.  “And energy.”  He pushed past her again but couldn’t resist adding, “It would behoove you not to trust so easily in the future, assuming we get out of here.”  
      “Edel wouldn’t trick me!”  
      “You really are naïve, Duck.”  
      “Aria!” she shouted at his back, her voice ringing off the stone walls.  
     Fakhir froze.  He turned to face her and blinked at the expression on her face.  There were tears mixed with fury in her eyes.  “What?”  
     Her face screwed up further.  “My name is Aria,” she growled through clenched teeth, and he had the impression he’d finally pushed her too far.  
     Yet Fakhir couldn’t help himself.  “Then why does everyone call you Duck?”  
     Her face went pale.  “Because of you!” she snapped.  “Do you really think anyone would actually name their daughter Duck!?  Do you know anyone who would like to be called one?  Ugly Duck, Ugly Duck!  That’s what they said.  Because of _you!”_  
     He blinked at her again, completely confounded.  He had no idea what the hell they were even talking about anymore.  Fakhir advanced on her a step, only slightly gratified when she took one shaky step back in retreat.  “You said that before,” he murmured.  “What on earth do you mean?”  
     Her eyes went suddenly, impossibly wide.  A long moment of silence swelled between them, and when she finally did speak it wasn’t to answer his question.  “Everyone else knows me, or of me,” she whispered.  “They all call me Duck.  They all know why.  Except you.”  
     Fakhir frowned.  What was she going on about?  
      “You’re different,” she went on.  Her eyes narrowed, studying him curiously.  “Do you remember me?”  
     He recoiled from her as if she’d burned him.  That face flashed in his mind again, more concrete this time.  It wasn’t just rain and tears on her face.  There was something else there too—something dark and thick.  Blood.  She was surrounded by sorrow.  She was surrounded by death.  
      “What?” he rasped through a throat gone suddenly dry.  
     She didn’t seem to notice his reaction.  She was still studying him curiously.  “At the school?  Do you remember me always being around?”  
      “I never take much notice of underclassmen,” he muttered woodenly.  “Why?”  
     She chewed her lip but didn’t answer.  And then of a sudden she looked away and her shoulders drooped.  “Nothing, never mind.  You’re right.  We’re wasting time.  We should get going.”  
      “Hey wait!” he called as she started toward the staircase leading down into a pit of darkness below.   
     She stopped and glanced at him.  
     Fakhir swallowed hard, then steeled himself.  “You should let me go first… Aria.”

***

     Aria hid a secret smile as Fakhir retrieved the single torch burning on the far wall of the narrow passage—the only source of light in their strange circumstance.  He hefted it high in his left hand, drew his sword in his right, and started down the narrow, steep stairs which seemed to descend forever.  
     _He called me Aria,_ she exulted privately.  That small concession somehow felt like a huge victory.  Her smile quickly turned to a frown though.  _But he didn’t say that he remembered me.  If I’m really just a bird, then what I remember of being a kid growing up in Goldkrone Towne never happened.  If he doesn’t remember it, then that means I’m just a duck, and everything… my whole life, all my memories… it’s just a lie.  Just a story._   The thought sank her morale with all the force of a Russian torpedo.  
      “What is this place?” Fakhir’s mumbled question echoed back to her through the shadows.  
      “Probably the sewers left over from the original Roman settlement,” Aria answered automatically, her thoughts still tangled in her ongoing existential crisis.  
     Fakhir threw her a funny look over his shoulder.  “Excuse me?”  
      “Goldkrone Towne was built on a Roman fort,” she blinked at him in surprise.   “You didn’t know that?”  
      “You did?”  His voice betrayed heavy disbelief.  
     She shrugged, “I guess so.”  
     Shaking his head, he resumed the dark descent in silence.  The passage eventually opened out into a cavernous space which dropped off steeply to the left toward a dark chasm.  Overhead the ceiling arched away into indiscernible darkness, and if she wasn’t entirely mistaken, Aria could glimpse stalactites dripping off it through the flickering light of Fakhir’s torch.  A shiver ran through her and she leaned over the edge, trying to see to the bottom of the chasm their path ran alongside.  
      “Scary,” she muttered.  
     Quick as a snake, Fakhir’s hand darted out and grasped a fistful of her hair, yanking her back from the edge just as the stone under her feet turned to dust.  Aria scrabbled back from the crumbling path, her heart suddenly racing in her chest.  
      “Idiot,” he snapped, “Walk towards the middle.  You’re already careless enough as it is.”  
     She rubbed at her abused scalp, annoyed.  “Hey, that hurt!”  
      “So would falling,” he grumbled.  
     Unable to help herself, Aria stuck her tongue out at his back.  
      “If you think I didn’t see that, you’re mistaken.”  
     _Sheesh, he’s maddening!  
_       “Why are you like that, anyway?” Fakhir demanded after a long span of walking in silence.  
      “Like what?” Aria snapped back, only half-listening and still more than a little irritated that he’d pulled her hair.  She was busy concentrating on _not_ tripping over the uneven ground so he wouldn’t have to save her again.  
      “The costume, the shoes, the tights,” he growled.  “Princess Tutu.”  
      “To dance,” she answered with a shrug.  
     He harrumphed at that.  “So that’s what Princess Tutu does?  Dances around like an idiot?  Why not just fight Krähe and be done with it?”  
     His question gave her pause.  “You think I haven’t tried fighting?”  
      “Have you?” he asked, his tone accusatory.  
     She frowned.  When he asked it like that she… hadn’t.  Not really.  
      “So why?” he demanded.  “Why does Princess Tutu look like that?  Why dancing?”  
      “It isn’t any different,” she answered, her words tripping over each other on her tongue.  “Dancing is an art.  Art is the pursuit of perfection.  Perfection can’t be achieved of course, but that isn’t the point.  It still has to be diligently pursued, and all that stuff hanging on walls and standing on pedestals that we call _art_ is a mere byproduct of the pursuit.  The art of dance is meant to be inspirational, that by pursuing perfection one might inspire the pursuit toward perfection in others, or at least the illusion of control over certain elements and the ability to affect change in one’s environment.”  She caught herself against the wall as she stumbled over a loose stone and grimaced.  “Fighting is also an art,” she went on, repeating the words as if out of rote.  “But its focus is turned entirely inward toward the perfection of oneself, that in perfecting oneself one might strengthen one’s connection to the perfection of creation and in the balance of perfection one achieves a transcendental understanding of the fundamental truths of life and death and all that beats in the mysteries of the universe.”  
     Aria looked up just in time to prevent crashing into Fakhir who had suddenly stopped moving.  “What is it?” she demanded anxiously.  “Why’d you stop?”  
     He looked at her over his shoulder, a strange expression twisted up on his face.  
      “What?”  She looked wildly from side to side as if there might be ghosts collecting in the very air around her.  “Why are you looking at me like that?  What did I say?”  She honestly couldn’t remember.  
     Fakhir stared at her a second longer.  “It was almost… poignant.”  
      “Poignant?” she repeated blankly.  
     He held her eyes a moment more.  “Must have been Tutu talking,” he muttered, and picked up the pace again.  
      “Thanks,” she grumbled back dryly.  Her mind raced back and she tried to recall her words.  _What did I say?  I was just babbling right?  You mean the first time I’m not listening to myself babble and I say something important?_   Go figure.  
     After that the path, as it were, roughened and conversation was no longer an option.  Aria had to focus on every step to keep from falling, and even with intense concentration Fakhir had to steady her time and again.  Her chest was burning from the exertion, and from having to repeatedly bend down as the tunnel narrowed around them.  On several occasions they even had to crawl on hands and knees.  And once she had to wriggle on her belly to pull herself through an especially tight opening.  
     After about the fiftieth time she’d stumbled into Fakhir’s back only for him to catch and steady her, he frowned down.  His expression was made more severe by the flickering light of their torch which had—miraculously—kept burning.  He knocked a cobweb out of her hair and she yelped as the image of a spider crawling down her collar flashed in her mind.  
      “Relax,” he said as she danced in a frantic circle, swiping at cobwebs and invisible arachnids.  “There’s nothing there.”  
      “Really?” she asked, throwing him a terrorized look.  
     He rolled his eyes.  “What is it with girls and spiders?”  
      “Don’t tell me you aren’t scared of a big hairy spider too!” she retorted sharply.  
     Fakhir just shook his head.  Then he gave her another strange look.  “You are really Princess Tutu, aren’t you?”  
      “Yeah, what of it?” she snapped, still scraping cobwebs and dirt off her skirt.  
      “I thought Princess Tutu was more… uh… you know.”  
     She growled at him, glaring.  
     Fakhir’s lips twitched.  “Never mind.”  
     He turned back to their tireless trek, his torch flashing over the walls, lighting them up as they passed as if they were dusted with the fine traces of a million million stars.  
      “I wonder what causes that,” he mused to no one in particular.  
     Aria, still stressed over the thought of spiders, shrugged.  “Diamonds, probably.”  
      “Idiot,” he sighed.   
      “Of course they are,” she rebutted.  “The whole town was built in the middle of a crater.  They’re impact diamonds.  Practically worthless, but still diamonds.”  
     Another strange look was tossed her way as he kept walking.  “Your knowledge of Goldkrone Towne is disturbingly thorough for someone who’s last school paper was three words long.”  
      “Five words,” she corrected snarkily.  “Don’t forget ‘the end’.”  
     He growled something which sounded suspiciously like _carte wrasse.  
_      Aria smiled again.  She was actually starting to like fighting with him, which made her seriously question her sanity.  He was prickly, and gruff, and entirely too conceited and proud—but despite all of that he was still somehow good in his own way.  Which made her think...  
      “Say Fakhir,” Aria spoke up, watching the stalactites glittering above them as if a thousand eyes were up there looking down.  
      “What is it?” he sighed.  
     She shuddered, feeling oddly awkward and weirdly guilty.  “Nothing, never mind.”  
      “What the hell?” he swore, “if you didn’t want to say just keep your mouth shut.”  
     She tore her eyes away from the ceiling and focused on a spot somewhere between his shoulder blades.  “Oh, no it’s not like that but,” she chewed her lip worriedly.  “Just so you know, I don’t think you’re no good as a knight or anything.”  
      “What are you getting at?” he sighed tiredly.  
      “I’m not really trying to get at anything,” she answered him lightly.  “I just didn’t really think you were that nice when I first met you, but now I feel like I know you a little better and—”  
      “I’ll say this right now,” he interrupted her harshly.  “I have no intention of cooperating with you.  I’ll help Mytho in my own way, end of story.”  
     She glanced away.  “I know that,” she whispered.  
     They came to a steep drop off and Fakhir jumped easily down.  
      “Well you know—” Aria ventured again.  
      “What?” he asked.  
     She glanced away sheepishly, “Nothing, it doesn’t matter.”  
     He looked up at her in annoyance, “What’s your problem?  Quit stopping in the middle of your sentences.”  
     She reeled back.  “I was just thinking about what Edel said, that I thought she was my friend because that’s what the story made me feel, and I was wondering if that was true what do I really feel about Mytho?”  
     His lips quirked oddly and he held a hand up to help her down.  
     Surprised, Aria took it, jumping lightly off the ledge to land beside him.  She was almost—but not quite—able to keep the grimace of pain off her face.  “The first time I saw him it was magical,” she said, as if to cover for her expression.  “But when I looked closer his eyes looked so lonely and I thought that maybe if I became Princess Tutu...” Aria trailed off.  “I just wanted to make him smile.  At the start that’s really all there was to it.  But now I—I just don’t know.”  
     Fakhir’s eyes were fixed on her face and he frowned.  “Ari—” he broke off, tipping his head on one side.  
      “What?” she whispered loudly.  
     He shook his head sharply, indicating silence.  
     And then she heard it.  A sound like the flutter of wings reached them from the way they’d come.  _Bats maybe?_    
     Fakhir’s eyes widened in alarm.  He reached out and jerked her behind him.  “Damn it,” he swore, drawing his sword forth as a terrible screeching and cawing came rushing toward them.   
     Aria stumbled and turned in time to see a great hoard of rushing black wings and red eyes flying right at them.  “Fakhir!”  
      “Run!” he commanded.  
     There wasn’t much of a choice.  Aria started to run, but another flock of crows came out of the passage ahead.  She froze in her tracks and began to turn back, but there was nowhere to go.  The crows behind them had reached Fakhir and he was doing his best to valiantly cleave them from the air.  She spun back toward the oncoming murder and threw up her arms just in time.  Sharp beaks bit into her, talons tore at her upraised arms, and heavy wings beat against her face.  She screamed once, stumbling away from the onslaught and her feet slipped on the ground.  Something soft gave way beneath her and she started to tip sideways.  
      “Fakhir!” she screamed.  
     He turned from where he stood, cutting black birds out of the air, and his face registered shock and panic in equal measures before he swore.  “Idiot!” he hissed, abandoning the battle to dive toward her.  
     Aria felt his arm close around her waist, saw his sword fly out of his hand over the edge of darkness into an unfathomable void, and heard the slide of stone as the ground disappeared beneath their feet.  The last thing she remembered was striking the ground.

 

     Aria groaned and opened her eyes.  She was lying face down on the ground, her cheek half-buried in wet black sand.  Every inch of bare skin burned like she’d just been dragged across gravel and broken glass.  With an effort she pushed herself up and looked around.  Not far from her was Fakhir’s torch.  Still burning, it cast enough light for her to see she’d fallen into a deep, almost circular pit.   
     The crows were gone, thank whatever small blessing that was.  She groaned again and pushed herself up onto her elbows, ignoring the sharp pinch of protesting ribs, and tried to take stock.  It was definitely some kind of well, or cistern, or one of those pits they threw prisoners into a thousand years ago when they wanted to leave them somewhere awful to die.  She shuddered at the thought and rose shakily to her feet.  
     Her knees buckled, her legs rebelled against her weight, and she caught herself against the mossy wall of the pit.  Aria’s hand slipped and she almost fell again.  She frowned and touched the slick stones.  It would be impossible to climb those.  
      “Fakhir?” she asked, turning in place and searching the shadows for any sign of another living soul.  
     Her eyes caught on the glint of what might be his sword, and not far from it the huddled black mass of what could only be…  
      “Fakhir!” she cried in alarm.  She took two steps, lost her balance, and wound up crawling to him over the wet sand.  Her knees felt like raw meat when she knelt beside him.  “Please don’t be dead,” she begged, gently turning him over.  An ugly welt marred his temple just over his right eye and a stream of blood had dried against one side of his face, dark against his skin.  “Fakhir?” she whispered, but he didn’t answer.          
     Fear powered through her veins and a shudder convulsed through her.  She was cold.  So very cold.  She could see her breath puffing in front of her face.  
     Aria looked up again, desperate for an escape, for help, for _anything._   At the far end of the cistern the wet black sand sloped down into a pool of black, brackish looking water.  At the edges of the water were chunks of wood.  Drift maybe, or part of whatever might have once covered this pit—which was clearly manmade.  She forced herself to her feet, commanded her shaky legs to hold her, and crossed to where the crumbled wood lay.  It was moldy and crumbled as she touched it, evidence of its age, but she gathered it all the same.  In a few minutes she had a small but respectable pile and almost sobbed in relief when it lit readily under the ministrations of the torch.   
     Light blossomed in their dark little hell, glinting off the perfectly round pit.  Aria turned in a circle, looking up, looking all around.  
     There was no way out.  
     She approached the nearest wall, ran a hand over the moss, and then against all logic dug her fingers into the crumbling mortar and tried to climb the ancient brick.  Her feet slipped against the stones, refusing to catch any traction.  “Argh!” she exploded, pounding a fist into the mossy wall in frustration.  
     Defeated and dejected she returned to the fire and sat down beside the prone form of Fakhir.  “Come on,” she pleaded.  “Wake up.  _Please.”  
_      Aria brushed the hair back from his face and his eyelids flew open.   
      “What are you doing?” he demanded.  
     She grinned in relief.  “Checking for a pulse.”  
      “That’s not how you do it,” he groaned, sitting up.  
      “I thought you were dead.”  
      “It’s a miracle I’m not.”  He touched his forehead and winced.  “Where’s my sword?”  
      “Over there,” she gestured vaguely.  
     He glanced in the direction she’d indicated, then his eyes went to the fire in front of her.  “You did that?” he asked.  
     She shrugged.  “I’m cold.”  
     Fakhir grumbled at that and rolled to his feet, hissing only slightly at the pull of battered muscles.  He retrieved the weapon and inspected it carefully before sliding it home at his side.  Only then did he look around.  “What is this place?”  
      “I think it’s an old well,” she said.  _Or a death pit,_ she didn’t say.  
     He looked up, “I guess we’ve got no choice but to climb out.”  
      “We can’t climb, it’s too slippery,” she told him, still sitting on the sand feeling more than a little bit sorry for herself.  
     Fakhir wasn’t listening.  He was at the wall already, trying and failing to climb the slick stones.  “It’s covered in moss,” he cursed, “I doubt we can climb this.”  
      “I just said that,” she complained.  
     He turned to her, frustrated.  “Well what do you plan to do?”  
      “Personally I planned to sit here and pity myself for a few minutes,” she retorted hotly.  
      “I bet you were,” he growled.  
     She chose to ignore him, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.  Her poor tattered skirt just barely reached to her ankles in this position, and it did little to cut the chill of the air.  Her clothes were a mess.  The sleeves of her jacket were shredded by the ravens, bloody and covered in filth.  She was bleeding from scrapes and cuts in a dozen different places, and if her ribs had ached before, they _really_ ached after her little tumble.  
     Fakhir seemed to notice her inventory.  “You should have worn better clothes for this,” he told her.  
      “I don’t have any better clothes,” she replied honestly.  
      “Then you should definitely have your parents get some.”  
     A small little something broke inside of her.  “I don’t have any parents.  I don’t have anyone.”  
     There was silence from Fakhir, and from the corner of her eye she could see him staring at her contritely.  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, “I didn’t know.”  
      “It doesn’t matter,” she assured him.  “All that matters is finding Mytho and getting out of here.”  
      “We could really use Princess Tutu right about now,” he suggested heavily.  
     Aria felt tears prick at her eyes.  But he was right.  Princess Tutu _would_ be able to get them out.  Probably.  
     Maybe.  
     Her eyes went to the far side of the well where the water stood.  Firelight flickered over the black water.  There was a hole in the bricks there, just over the water’s edge.  She got to her feet.  Yes, it was definitely a hole.  A strange thought occurred to her.  _We may be able to get out through the water.  If I was a bird I could check it out, but…_ she glanced over at Fakhir who was staring up at the wall now as if contemplating how best to attack it.  _How exactly do I explain to Fakhir that I’m really a duck?_    
     It wasn’t like there was a manual for that kind of conversation.  
     She sighed heavily.  “Fakhir?”  
     He turned away from the wall, “What is it?”  
     She put a hand to her pendant, “One time when I lost this necklace, you held onto it for me, remember Fakhir?”  
     He blinked at her, “What about it?”  
      “Would you hold onto it again?” she requested, unclasping it from around her neck.  She stepped toward him, holding it out on the palm of her hand.  
      “What the hell is this?” he asked, bewildered.  
      “Here,” she said firmly, pressing it into his palm.  She stepped away and felt the familiar searing heat surge through her as her body warped and twisted and transformed.  _And now Fakhir knows all my secrets._

***

     Fakhir’s eyes grew wide in alarm as Aria, handing him her pendant, glowed briefly with a burst of golden light and then… vanished.  
      “What the hell!?” he gasped, almost dropping the jewel as he jerked away from the pile of clothes at his feet—the only trace of the girl who’d once stood there.  
     His heart pounded in his chest and he stared dumbly at the discarded garments.  He’d asked for Princess Tutu but… _Did she just—did she just turn into a speck of light and vanish?  
_      He jumped when the clothes twitched.  Aria’s earlier comment about spiders tugged at him and despite himself, he quickly withdrew as something—something _large—_ started moving around beneath the heavy wool of the crumpled grey jacket.  
     _Courage you idiot!_ he scorned himself, and forced his suddenly numb feet to move forward.  Using the toe of his boot, he twitched the jacket to one side.  
      “Quack!”  
     Fakhir blinked.  
     Standing where Aria had been only moments ago was a fluffy little grey creature blinking up at him with bright blue eyes.  Its downy little wings ruffled happily.  
      “A _duck?”_   Fakhir felt his breath catch in his throat, felt his lungs seize up.  
     The little duck squawked again, then turned on her overly long grey legs and tumbled toward the brackish water at the far end of the pit.   
      “She just… she just turned into a duck.”   
     He was going insane.  That was the only feasible explanation.  He’d hit his head harder than he’d thought and now he was seeing things.  Except that…  
     Fakhir’s eyes were drawn down to the blood-red jewel hanging off the chain in his hand and an awful suspicion dawned on his stunned mind.   
     The duck hit the water, swam to the far side, and then with a minor splash, breached the surface and disappeared through a tiny hole in the far wall.  
     Fakhir swallowed back the sudden taste of bile.  “This wasn’t a pendant for her to become Tutu,” he realized.  _Those bright blue eyes.  I’ve never seen a duck with blue eyes before.  
_      A coldness radiated out from the center of his chest and he found himself retreating, stumbling step after unsteady step back until his spine hit the damned mossy stones of this godawful prison.   
     _It can’t be_ that _duck.  
_      Heat flooded his face.  His hand spasmed into a fist around the chain and he felt the sharp bite of the links as they bit into his flesh.  Fakhir welcomed the pain.  Pain was a far more acceptable feeling than this… this _shame._   His other hand slapped over his mouth as sickness churned in his stomach.   
     _“Just so you know, I don’t think you’re no good as a knight or anything.”_    
     Fakhir’s knees gave out and he slid down the wall, landing on his ass in the damp black sand.  “She—she saw me crying,” he realized, the sudden horror turning to humiliation.  _That’s why she kept going on about that.  How much did she see?_   His hands were actually shaking.  _Shaking!  
_      Then he looked up across the water.   
     _Where is she?  
_      Minutes had passed.  Hadn’t they?  She still hadn’t appeared.  A different thought entered his consciousness.  _Is she alright?_    
     Fakhir shot to his feet, “She isn’t drowning is she?  Can ducks even drown?”  He shook his head, _of course they can, idiot!_   Silence surrounded him and he stared at the dark water, tension mounting inside.  “Idiot!” he cried, rushing forward, not even certain what he planned to do.  
     A fluffy head suddenly broke the still surface of the foul pool.  “Quack!”  
     Fakhir froze at the water’s edge and in a flash his concern turned to anger.  
     The duck approached, squawking nonsensically at him, gesturing with one fluffy wing.   
     He felt himself flushing all over again, “Why did you—” Words failed him. “…you—”  
     And then something broke loose inside.  “Why did you not tell me?!” Fakhir shouted.  “Hiding like that?  Making me think, making me…  You can’t just… You shouldn’t hide things like that!”   
     She stopped squawking and cocked her head at him.   
     Fakhir balled his hands up in fists, leaning out over the water.  “Quit playing dirty you—”  
     The duck suddenly flapped her fluffy wings violently and jumped into the air, grabbing the pendant that dangled out of his hand.  There was a flash of red light and in the blink of an eye the duck was a girl.  And she was furious.  “You say that but it’s not like I revealed it to you because I wanted to!  It’s just easier when I’m a bird to check small spaces!  And it’s not like—”  
     Aria’s tirade cut off midstream when she realized Fakhir had his back to her.  He stood resolutely facing the slick moss sides of the pit, cheeks burning, her crumpled grey jacket now held in his right hand extended out and just slightly behind him.  
     She squeaked in alarm and Fakhir heard a splash as if she’d jumped back into the black water.  “You saw!” she accused.  
     He had to clear his throat before he could respond through clenched teeth.  “No!”  Though there had been a flash—and he was trying _very_ hard to be a gentleman and block it out of his mind.  And just like that his temper rekindled and he spun back on her.  “More importantly, what did you see?  Shouldn’t you be bringing that up first?”  
     She shot angrily to her feet, “How could I when—”  
      “Don’t stand up!” he shouted, throwing her jacket and spinning away once again.  
     There was no way now he was going to get _that_ image out of his head!

***

     Aria surreptitiously studied Fakhir’s stubbornly turned back as she pulled on her clothes.  She was one hundred percent embarrassed from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, despite the fact that he claimed he’d seen nothing.   
      “What’s the passage like?” he demanded, more she supposed, to talk about anything else.  
      “It gets tight in places, but I think we can get through it all the way to the other side.  And there _is_ another side.  It seems to connect to a deeper section of sewers.  I hope you can hold your breath though, because there aren’t many air pockets.”  
      “I’ll be fine,” he growled.  
      “You can turn around now,” she said as she buttoned up her shirt.  When he turned she saw he was still blushing and she hid a smile.  She didn’t even know Fakhir _could_ blush.  “Here,” she said, “Take my hand.”  
     He looked at her askance as if she was offering him a snake, “What for?”  
      “I know where we’re going,” she said, suddenly exasperated.  “You don’t.  And it’s dark down there, and we can’t exactly take the torch, and unless you want to drown, take my hand.”  
     He looked like he’d rather touch the snake, but he did as she said, and she led him deeper into the water.  It was colder now than when she was a duck, washing like ice over her ankles and up to her waist.  She wondered how deep they were underground.  
      “You ever heard the tales of the sirens?” Fakhir groused.  
     She shot him an amused grin, “You worried I’ll drown you?”  
      “At this point I wouldn’t put anything past you,” he grumbled.  
     Aria almost laughed.  Instead she said, “Deep breath.”  And then plunged into the water.  
     Then they were swimming and she couldn’t see much of anything at all.  It was all darkness and water and terrible cold.  She followed her instinct, and after a moment, her pendant began to glow dully, lighting the way.  The first air pocket they reached was barely that, with room enough for less than a gulp of air each.  Aria soldiered on, her lungs burning, her hand gripping Fakhir’s tightly.  Twice more they stopped at tiny pockets until finally they emerged on the other side in what looked like a collapsed aqueduct.  
      “It goes deeper that way,” she told him, her voice thick and hoarse as she climbed out of the icy water.  
     He glanced in the direction where the water flowed, and then turned to the dark tunnel that led away.  “That’s where Mytho is,” he said, certainty lining his words.  
      “How can you be sure?” she asked, ringing the stinking water from her hair.  
      “I can feel it.”  
     Aria just shrugged.  Her glowing pendant indicated the same, but she didn’t say as much.  She collapsed on the stone ledge that lined the channel of water, struggling to catch her breath.  
     Fakhir sat beside her resting his arms on his knees.  He didn’t look too good either.  
      “Were you okay back there, Fakhir?” she asked a bit worriedly.  He _had_ hit his head after all.  Fakhir threw her a look and she was surprised to see him smile.  “What is it?”  
      “You should see yourself,” he commented.  
     Aria looked down in surprise.  She was dripping wet and freezing cold, but she knew that wasn’t what he was talking about.  She smiled back at him.  
      “We can probably rest here for a bit,” he decided, and for him to admit such a thing amazed her.  “It will be better for us that way.  We don’t know what lies ahead.  Whatever it is, it will be better to face it well rested.”  
      “Okay,” she murmured in surprise.  Secretly she was grateful.  The very thought of moving right now hurt.  She leaned back against a stone wall, her shoulder barely brushing Fakhir’s, and hugged her knees to her chest hoping to create a warm pocket.  She missed the fire.  And the torch.  The only source of light here was from the glowing pendant at her heart.  
      “How—” Fakhir’s lips quirked and he shot a quick, furtive look in her direction.  “How long have you been a… duck?”  
     Aria rubbed her hands together, breathing on them to warm her fingers.  “I don’t really know,” she admitted.  “I remember being a girl, I remember being a duck, and it all just gets sort of fuzzy if I try to remember too much.”  She was shivering so hard now she had to work to keep her teeth from chattering.  She wondered why Fakhir wasn’t cold, but he didn’t seem bothered by it.  
      “There’s something you should know,” he said softly, gazing at the dark water they’d just swum through.  “Back when I was a child, when I would read the Prince and the Raven to Mytho, the thing that he showed the strongest interest in was neither what happened to himself nor the Raven, but what happened to Tutu about whom only a little was actually written.”  He looked over at her, eyes dark in the gloomy passage, then glanced away.  “He wanted to hear over and over again the part where Tutu turns into a speck of light and then vanishes.  His sudden desire to regain his heart most likely stems from Tutu’s role in returning it.”  
     Aria watched him as he told the story, turning over the revelation in her head.  “But they were saying Mytho took out his heart himself.”  
      “That’s the kind of person he is,” Fakhir murmured in reply.  “You see, protecting the small and the weak, that is Mytho’s single greatest desire.  To fulfill that he’ll cast off any regard for himself.  Even the loss of his heart couldn’t tear that out of him.  That’s Mytho.”  
     His shoulder brushed against hers and Aria leaned her head back against the wall.  Her eyes closed as she pictured the Prince, and a white light grew in her mind.  “That’s the Mytho I remember,” she murmured, drifting off into faraway dreams of impossible things.  Her head lolled to one side and she fell fast asleep.

***

     Fakhir looked down in surprise at the girl passed out on his shoulder.  _What did she mean by that?_   He shook her lightly, “Hey,” he muttered.  She didn’t wake up.   
      “Idiot.”  He heaved a sigh and wrapped an arm around her narrow shoulders, surprised at how cold she felt.  He might have thought she was dead if not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest.  _She’s really small,_ he realized.  _And fragile._   He tried to reconcile the courageous girl who’d wandered down into this hellish nightmare without blinking with the delicate thing beside him.  Princess Tutu had always been an adversary to him before, someone to defeat.  But Aria wasn’t like that, was she?     
     _What the hell is going on with me?_ he wondered wildly.  Fakhir hadn’t really needed rest just now, but somehow he knew she had which is why he’d said anything about it.  Two days ago he probably would have dragged the girl by her hair down the dark passages until they found Mytho.  Or no, he would have just left her behind and continued on without her.  And why did he put his arm around her?  He wasn’t cold, but she was.  The old him would have just let her freeze … but now?  Why did he feel this strange growing protectiveness?  It had started after she helped him back to his dorms, when he saw the bruises on her arms.  _The bruises.  
_      He looked and saw through her torn clothing that the ones on her arms had blackened, dark and angry.  Fakhir knew from that flash he really was trying to forget that they covered her body, a latticework of injuries over her otherwise pale skin.  He blushed again and pushed the image out of his head.  
     Was that it?  That realizing Tutu wasn’t some mysterious, immortal faery but a very real, very breakable girl was the impetus behind these strange instincts?  Or was it something else?  
     Against his better judgement, Fakhir summoned the memory haunting the edges of his sanity.  It was an old memory, something that had happened before his parents died, he thought.  Most of it was fuzzy, the recollection of a toddler—he’d only been about two or three at the time.  Hell, it may have been nothing more than a dream.  But he did remember _her._   The most beautiful girl he’d ever seen next to his own mother.  He’d thought maybe she was an angel, except angels don’t cry really, do they?  Because that’s what she’d been doing, standing in the rain weeping.  
     Surrounded by blood.  
     And death.  
     Aria didn’t really look like that girl, he realized.  And neither really did Tutu.  The face he remembered was just a blur anyway.  But for some reason when he looked at her now, it all seemed so clear.  
     What wasn’t clear was why he was remembering it at all.   
     And why the memory of it terrified him.

 


	27. Der standhafte Zinnsoldat

**_The Steadfast Tin Soldier_ **

 

_“Who is this Prince to you?”_  
_“He is my friend.”_  
_“And your friend wishes to shatter his heart to keep this evil at bay?”  Judgement._  
_“Yes.”  Lie._  
_Lie.  Lie.  Lie.  Lie._  
_Lie._  
_“No.”  Resentment._  
_Satisfaction.  Smugness._  
_…shame._  
_“And you would do this to your friend to save the town?  Or to save yourself?”_  
_Confusion.  Panic.  Doubt._  
_“The time to fight is drawing closer.  Are you sure you’re not afraid of sharing in the same wretched fate as the knight in the story?”_  
_Insult.  Rage.  Indignation.  “I’m not.”_  
_“You kept calling the Prince a good-for-nothing to make sure that his heart wouldn’t be restored.  Knowing he loved to dance you enrolled him at the Academy to keep him busy.  You were too afraid to fight!”_  
_Fear.  Anger.  Outrage.  “No!”_  
_“There’s no way that you’ll protect Mytho the way you are now.”  Disappointment._  
_Fear.  Doubt.  Shame._  
_Shame.  Shame.  Shame._  
_Shame._  
_“I am afraid.”_  
_Truth._  
_“…that isn’t going to stop me.”_  
_The tinkling sound of music: the March of the Automatons._  
_“May those who accept their fate be granted happiness.  
_ _…may those who defy it be granted glory.”_

 

Fakhir jerked awake in near darkness, mind reeling, whispers of the dream clinging to his fuzzy consciousness like cobwebs.  For a moment he was disoriented in the dark, panicked at the strange surroundings, and then memory kicked in.  He got to his feet, shaking numbness out of his limbs and took a step toward the inky opening that loomed like the mouth of a grave before him.  He couldn’t shake the strange feeling of tension that drew his muscles taut, the inkling of gory things to come.  
A rustling sound at his feet drew his attention back to the girl.  “Fakhir?” she asked, blinking in the dim red light thrown off by her pendant.   
He’d forgotten she was there.  His movement must have wakened her.  Grinding his teeth together, Fakhir turned his attention back to the ominous tunnel.  “We should get going.”  
She climbed hastily to her feet, dusting her skirt off as if out of habit.  It didn’t help her appearance at all.  No amount of dusting would clean the grime from her clothes.  
Or his.  
 “Okay,” she agreed quickly.  
He glanced away from her, conscious of her crowding close as if suddenly unnerved by the looming shadows.  He didn’t like the way he was feeling right now.  He reached deep, trying to find that aloof ambivalence which had kept him focused for years.  It eluded him.  Fakhir clenched his jaw and curled his hands into fists.  “Let’s go.”  
Without looking back to confirm she was with him, he started off into the darkness.  The bobbing red light cast ahead of him told Fakhir she was keeping up.  And he tried not to care.  And failed.  The traces of the dream stayed with him, and he wondered why he’d dreamt it at all.  He’d had no intention of falling asleep.  Yet when he had… those words.  All spoken to him.  Cundrie.  Kyron.  Edel.  
_What the hell does it mean?_ Or did it mean anything at all?  
_It’s just my nervousness, that’s it.  That’s why I dreamt of those things._  
Fakhir thought the words but he didn’t feel them.  Some instinct, some primal warning was screaming at him to turn back, that only bad things lay ahead.  He fought the urge to heed it, forced his feet to keep going, his heart to keep true.  He’d come down here for Mytho and he’d be damned if he didn’t leave this place with him.  Even if that meant he’d never leave this place at all.  
Around them the tunnel of rough stone smoothed out into a passage that was decidedly manmade and impossibly straight.  Despite what Aria had said earlier, whatever the purpose of this passage was, Fakhir doubted it had anything to do with waste removal.  He wondered briefly as to its purpose, then dismissed the thought as inconsequential.  
The tunnel abruptly stopped at a featureless wall and he froze.  Aria ran into his back with a soft exclamation before realizing what he had.  They’d reached a dead end.  
 “Damn,” he swore.  
 “There!”  
Fakhir’s head whipped around and he saw what she’d spotted—a narrow opening that seemed to branch away from the passage at a sharp angle back the way they’d come.  His eyes narrowed suspiciously at it.  “Stay behind me,” he warned, placing an instinctive hand on the hilt of his sword.  
He squeezed through the opening ahead of her, barely able to discern the floor in front of him with most of the light blocked by his body in the tight passage.  In less than three paces the tunnel switched back again.  _We’re being herded._ He realized.  _It’s a chokepoint.  A kill zone._   He tightened his hand on the hilt of his sword and sucked in a breath, all too aware of their precarious position.  
Fakhir rounded one last corner and winced as light—blindingly bright after so much time spent in darkness—stabbed his eyes.  He raised a hand to block it out, ready for anything.  Anything except…  
 “It’s a lake,” Aria breathed beside him.  
Fakhir lowered his hand and saw that she was right.  About a dozen paces from the mouth of the narrow tunnel _was_ a lake… of sorts.  “I don’t like this,” he muttered, but his words were lost to the restless rustling of thousands of feathers.  High above, the ceiling arched up into a dome into which dozens of holes were drilled.  _Aeries,_ he realized, noting the glowing red eyes that glittered overhead like malevolent stars.  Beneath the threatening watch of the crows, the lake took up most of the center of the cavern, and at its heart was an island on which seemed to grow the twisted skeletons of white-barked trees which rose from the rocky ground like the claws of some terrible predator.  Clutched in those claws was a stone altar covered in a bed of roses, and on that bed of roses was…  
 “Mytho!” Aria cried out.  
The Prince didn’t move.  He lay like one dead, dressed in archaic finery as though for his own burial.  
Fakhir’s heart skipped a beat.  _Am I too late?_  
Together they raced to the edge of the black water lapping up onto equally black sand, and Fakhir cast about for some method to traverse the immeasurable depths.  He spotted nothing to help them.  _Looks like we’re swimming again._  
A strident voice rang out in the enormous space, drawing his attention.  “Finally, you’ve come.”  
 “Krähe,” he growled.  The crow bitch was standing on the extended branch of a twisted, white-limbed tree.   
Her painted face twisted in its own cruel smile.  “I’ve tired of waiting.”  
Aria took a step toward the lake, looking ready to dive into the icy water and swim if that’s what it took to reach the Prince.  “Mytho!” she screamed, ignoring Krähe.  
Fakhir reached for her to pluck her back but his hand never made contact.  A terrific, gale-force wind suddenly hit him.  His feet slipped on the ground and he braced against it.  Aria was thrown into him, unable to counter it on her own.  He threw up one hand to shield his face and reached for the girl with the other, surprised to find his fingers closing around gossamer silk instead of sodden wool.  
_Princess Tutu._  
Somehow in the seconds it took for the force of wind to drive them nearly back into the mouth of the narrow tunnel, Aria had transformed into Tutu.  
 “Stop this malevolence now!” Tutu cried out, and the tornado of force whipping against them died immediately away.  He wondered if it was her powers which had banished it.  
Fakhir didn’t wonder for long though.  Blinking stinging sand from his eyes, he saw that Krähe was only a few paces from them now, standing impossibly atop of the surface of the lake.  Her cruel face held a smug, satisfied expression and he yearned for the chance to wipe it off her smirking self.  
 “Agreed,” the girl in black purred.  
Fakhir blinked.  No way in hell was Krähe conceding now that she had them exactly as she wanted them.  A second later she proved it.  
 “Let us put an end to it,” she went on.  She lifted a black velvet box in her hand, “The Prince’s feeling of love is right here.”  Bringing it to her face, Krähe luridly rubbed the velvet against one pale cheek.  “The heart that loves all people, that loves the world yet belongs to no one.  I wonder who this shard will select if given a choice.  You or me?”  
_So that’s it,_ Fakhir harrumphed.  _How anticlimactic._ Except… no way did she drag them all the way down into this nightmarish hell just to let Mytho—or Mytho’s _heart_ —decide between them.  His eyes narrowed, studying Krähe for her deception.  
Tutu figured it out first.  “You want me to confess my love,” she whispered.  Her voice was so low only he could hear her, and even then only barely.  
Fakhir felt his heart give a painful thud and his mouth went dry.  
Krähe laughed.  “I wonder, whose words will it be drawn to once we’ve both laid our hearts bare?”  
Tightening the grip on his sword, he growled.  No one, _no one,_ threatened someone under his protection.  He skipped over thinking how the girl had somehow garnered that protection from him and addressed Krähe.  “So that’s your plan?”  
 “It is,” she informed him loftily, sneering as though he were something vile she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe.  “We can’t both have the Prince, and it’s pointless to just keep on fighting forever.”  Her attention went to Tutu, “So I offer you this once-in-a-lifetime deal.  If the shard chooses you I’ll return it to the Prince.  If it doesn’t, I’ll destroy it and shatter his heart so that it can never be repaired.  Do you accept my deal?”  
 “Tutu, don’t,” Fakhir warned, fear rising in his throat despite his best intentions.  
 “And if I refuse your deal?” Tutu asked.  
Fakhir saw she was holding herself tense, wary.  He was wary himself.  He was suddenly very, very afraid that she was going to try to do something stupid.  
Krähe shrugged and held the velvet box out from herself, dangling it dangerously over the black water.  “I’d consider carefully before doing anything rash.”  
_Dropping the shard won’t keep it from Tutu’s power, no matter how deep the lake is._ “Tutu—”  
 “I accept!” she announced, ignoring Fakhir’s hiss.  
 Krähe’s cold smile grew wider.  “Then speak of your love, Princess Tutu.  Tell the Prince what burns in your heart and make him yours.”  
All the blood rushed from her face and Fakhir took a step closer, his barely controlled rage simmering to the surface.  _If she speaks of her love she’ll turn into a speck of light and vanish!_ That wasn’t going to happen.  Not if he had anything to do with it.  Not on his watch.  Not ever.  
Tutu pressed a hand to her heart and staggered, almost as if Krähe’s challenge had issued an actual injury.  There was pain written clearly on her face, and then in a flash it was gone.  
 “Bitch,” Fakhir swore, directing the word to the witch perched on water.  
Krähe just laughed.  “The offer is real, _knight._ If the shard chooses Tutu I’ll return it and the Prince, to you.  Although, even if I do, by then Tutu will be nothing but a speck of light and Mytho’s heart will still be shattered with no one to put it together.”  
Fakhir had expected the crow’s deception, but when he realized the depth of Krähe’s depravity he felt a rush of fury power through his veins.  He looked to Tutu.  She’d yet to address Krähe’s challenge and the fear in her eyes was plainly evident.  He ground his teeth together in frustration.  _If I could just distract Krähe, Tutu could get to the Prince…_  
As if sensing his thoughts, the crow chuckled.  “There’s no reason to hesitate if you truly love the Prince.”  
Tutu stepped toward the water—and Krähe.  “But why do we have to fight each other this way?” she protested, “Because we both—”  
 “Well that is your fault!” Krähe snapped.  “Because _you_ restored pieces of the Prince’s heart.”  
The anger in her voice drew his attention back from strategizing, and he narrowed his eyes at the crow.  
Her distress was apparent.  Her face twisted up in cold fury.  But when she spoke, her words were calm, cunning.  Calculated.  “The fact that the Prince has been regaining his heart means that the tale will begin to move once again.  The tale of the Prince and the Raven, that is.  All things have been set in motion in accordance with the tale.  The knight will eventually be torn in two and die.  Princess Tutu will become a speck of light and vanish.  Days of bitter fighting will once again descend upon the Prince.  That is the outline that has been set.  These are the fates arranged.  You, Princess Tutu, are the one that set the tale in motion, even though nobody wished for it.”  Her cruel words turned calculating and she threw a sidelong glance his way.  “Am I right, Fakhir?”  
Tutu took a sudden step away from him and… it shouldn’t have, but it hurt.   
 “That time when you tried to take out Mytho’s heart!” she gasped.  
He flinched at the accusation in her voice.  As if her words summoned it, Fakhir saw the scene in his mind’s eye.  An iron mask.  A sword restored.  A terrible purpose.   
_“What would I need that for?”_  
_“It is a gift … to hide your face, so that God will not know it is you when you betray your friend.”_  
 “For Mytho’s sake…” Tutu breathed, the non-sequitur of her words belying her own memories replayed.  Her eyes went back to Krähe, “Then what I’ve been doing really _was_ hurting him.”  Tears filled her blue eyes, threatening to fall.  
 “That was true before,” he murmured.  Tutu wavered, fear and desperation chasing each other across her face.  “But now Mytho himself has the desire to regain his heart.  I share that wish.”  He turned to Krähe, raising his voice.  “You are the only one right now who doesn’t.  Too bad for you, Krähe.”  
 “Yes, it certainly is too bad.”  She didn’t sound very disappointed, nor did she seem altogether surprised they were resisting her.  “Right, my Prince?”  
Fakhir’s pulse pounded and he turned to the stone altar on the island at the center of the lake where Mytho lay.  For a moment nothing happened, and then slowly, woodenly, Mytho sat up and climbed down from the slab.  
 “And just when you had gone back to being the dummy you were,” Krähe sighed as if all this were a trifling annoyance.  She sauntered across the water’s surface, then leapt back into the branches of her tree.  “Thanks to my yanking out that piece of his heart it seems all his emotions have gone to sleep.”  
If possible, Tutu’s face went even paler.  “No,” she breathed.  And then, her voice cracking, “Mytho, no!”  Her voice carried across the water, shaking shadows out of their aeries.  
 “It’s no use, Tutu,” Krähe assured her nemesis.  She held out the velvet box and it crumbled in a column of darkness, reforming as a pedestal, and upon that pedestal a shining red jewel.  “There’s nothing more to say.”  Her commanding words rang with finality.  “My Prince?  Your sword.”  
Fakhir felt a painful lurch in his chest and he dashed to the very edge of the water as Mytho drew his weapon.  
 “What are you doing?” Tutu cried out at his side.  
Krähe didn’t answer.  Instead she addressed her slave.  “You know, my Prince, it seems the heart shard of love is not worth enough to Princess Tutu for her to want to protect it.  In that case, let’s shatter it into such tiny pieces that it can never be reassembled!”  
_No._  
_No.  No.  No.  No._  
_No!_  
Eyes blank, face blank, Mytho obediently approached the jewel on its pedestal.  He raised the bared blade of his sword—the same sword Fakhir had unearthed from Godfrey’s tomb.  The same sword the Prince had used to shatter his heart before.  The only weapon that could break the shining shard of love.  
 “ _No…_ ”  
Krähe loomed over him, her face ambivalent yet cruel.  “Now!” she commanded.  
At the same time Fakhir moved, his foot splashing in water as he started to draw his own blade knowing it was impossible.  
Also at the same time, Tutu screamed.  “Stop it!”  
 “Stop.” Krähe ordered.  
Mytho halted the blade’s descent at the last instant, its shining edge just barely brushing the ruby surface.  
 “You see now?” Krähe smirked.  “There is no other path from which you can choose.  Now get on with it and let me see you vanish!”  
 “Mytho,” Tutu breathed, despair edging the word.  Her head drooped on her shoulders.  “Fine,” she conceded.  
The same panic Fakhir felt when Mytho raised his sword returned.  
 “But in exchange,” she called out, “once I’ve vanished, please don’t do anymore horrible things to Mytho.”  
He turned astonished eyes on the girl.  Krähe was asking her to destroy herself, and all she requested in return was _this?_  
Krähe laughed.  “I wondered what you’d ask for.”  
 “Now wait—” he grabbed for her arm.  
Tutu shook him off.  “Promise me, Krähe!” she cried out.  
 “Certainly,” Krähe shrugged.  “I’ll love him even more than in the past.  So much so that he’ll forget all about you.”  
Panic battered in his chest, despair warring with terror.  This wasn’t happening.  This wasn’t _going_ to happen.  
 “And his heart,” she continued to bargain.  “You won’t shatter it?”  
Krähe’s expression tightened.  Then she chuckled.  “I won’t.”  
Tutu nodded, “Okay.”  And then, impossibly, she _smiled._ Bowing her head, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and—  
 “Wait!”  
Tutu’s eyes flew open.  
Krähe’s smug expression wavered.  
Fakhir was just as surprised as they were, because it was _his_ voice that rang against the walls of the cavern.  He couldn’t just stand by and let this happen.  He wouldn’t.  “Why do such a pointless thing?” he hissed at Tutu.  “Are you stupid?”  
 “What?” she glared at him.  “ _Stupid?”_  
 “Don’t trust so easily,” he reminded her, seething.  “If you just vanish then who is going to restore Mytho’s heart to him?  Hadn’t you wanted to see Mytho smile when he’d gained back all the pieces of his heart?  You alone and nobody else could accept Princess Tutu’s fate so serenely.”  
She gaped at him, genuinely surprised at his words.  
Well hell, he was surprised at them too.  “That’s _why_ you mustn’t vanish.”  
Her wide eyes shimmered with tears again.  
Fakhir turned away, drawing his own sword.  “I will change this fate!” he declared to God and Krähe, and whatever other malevolence existed in the world.  
God didn’t say anything, but Krähe threw back her head and laughed.  “Foolish knight!”  
From the high recesses of their aeries an entire troop of armed crow warriors—creatures with the bodies of men and the heads of fowl—descended to stand atop of the surface of the lake.  Fakhir looked more closely at the water.  Lines seemed to shimmer upon it, a distinct grid in a pale, nearly discernible checkerboard.  He stepped forward, testing the surface, and discovered it solid.  
 “You won’t even be able to get close to me,” Krähe assured him.  “Your resistance is futile, and you’ll die in vain!”  She cackled again.  “Fate cannot be altered!”  
 “Shall we put it to the test?” he growled back, raising his sword and dropping naturally into a fighting stance.  
 “Fakhir!” Tutu screamed, even as he rushed onto the surface of the water to meet the crow warriors as they charged.  Two of them slipped past him, soaring over his head on bounds impossibly— _magically_ —high.  He glanced back to see they’d boxed Tutu in, keeping her out of the fight.  
 “Be quiet and watch,” Krähe snapped.  
That was fine by him.  So long as Tutu was sidelined she was safe.  And hopefully not doing anything stupid like confessing her love.  
That was all he had time to think before the crows were upon him.  Once again Fakhir found himself in the throes of a violent dance.  Lessons learned long ago at the ministrations of the bookmen seemed to meld with his training at Gold Crown Academy.  This wasn’t like the battle in the church or the one at the ruins though:  a dangerous dance that was fluid but _fighting._   The warriors sprang at him, spinning in leaps and turns he’d memorized in the studio, striking with attacks he’d parried in the ring where the bookmen trained.  He found himself responding in kind, not just fighting but actually dancing, and realized that somehow this was Krähe’s doing too.   
The checkboard beneath his feet, the strangely solid surface of the water, was like a gameboard set against him.  The crows were pawns of a giant chess set.  Two queens were poised against each other in battle for their king—the Prince.  And he, the knight, was moved by the will of an unseen player.  Over and around, in-between, through, in all the ways only the knight could move.  His blade slashed and struck and pawns fell around him in shattering shadows, but always more pawns than the knight could reach.  He moved upon the board in well-established patterns, darkness in his own right, and death to those who dare stand against him.  
When the last of Krähe’s chosen was reduced again to the broken body of a bird, more descended from the stony sky to form a line of defense before their dark mistress.  He twirled his sword in his hand, loosening his muscles, and ignoring his name as Tutu cried out behind him.  _This_ dance he’d long ago mastered.  The bookmen had their flaws, but they’d seen to that.  As long as he had breath in his body, he could fight.  He _would_ fight.  Fakhir flashed a smile at Krähe and met her attack.  
_I will not be afraid._  
Parry, slash, fouette.  
_I will not be dissuaded._  
Disengage, brisé.  
_I will change this fate._  
Fleche, chassé  
_I will face my fears._  
Feint, lunge, sissonne.  
_I will._  
On and on they came.  On and on he fought.  In his head he heard music and he moved in time to it.  Unchoreographed, instinctual, leaping, turning, twisting, spinning on a giant stage of war.  Injury inflected and ignored, pain pushed aside, wounds and weariness disregarded.  All that existed was the rhythm of battle and the next opponent.   One by one he carved down the hateful tide until finally none remained.  
The battle was done.  The shadows defeated.  He turned to face Krähe.  “Give Mytho back, you crow!”  
 “I will not!” she defied him.  
And then she smiled.  
Fakhir’s heart lurched and he realized suddenly where he was standing—in the middle of a lake, on a surface that was quite suddenly _not_ solid.  
Cold water cascaded over his head.  In the distance he heard a scream.  Then suddenly, a rush of air catapulted him from the lake and the scream might have been his.  Up, up, up… to within spitting distance of the baleful aeries high above.  A murder of malicious crows, red eyes glittering, sharp beaks glinting, descended to feast.  They transformed into razor sharp knives just as he started to fall back toward the lake far below.  Struggling in midair, he swung his sword around, doing his best to parry the blades diving toward him.  But there were too many, and he was still falling.  Pain ripped through him.  And then everything was ice.  And darkness.

 

_“Mutti?”_  
_“Pierce!”  A scream.  Sobbing.  “I’m sorry, please, I didn’t—”_  
_“Treacherous bitch!”_  
_“Vater?”_  
_A hand raised in violence.  Another cry.  Blood._  
Run.  Run.  Run.  
_“Lolo!”_  
_“Catch him!”_  
_Footsteps behind him.  Feathers in front of him.  A curse.  An oath.  A scream._  
_Blood.  Pain.  Ripping.  Tearing._  
Her.  
 “Fakhir?”

 

_“Fakhir!”_  
His eyes opened.  All he saw was darkness.  He tasted iron and salt.  He couldn’t breathe.  
_The lake._  
Struggling against the weight of his own body, and the anchor of the Lohengrin sword dragging him down, Fakhir kicked toward what he hoped was the surface.  Light up ahead drew him and he followed it.  His lungs were burning, body aching.  And then the ground was suddenly beneath his feet, his hand was breaching the surface, his head...  He gasped in air.  
He’d reached the island.  
Sound seemed muted by a strange ringing in his ears.  Fakhir climbed out of the water, his shirt in tatters, blood seeping from a dozen wounds.  But he was numb.  He hurt inside, somewhere vital, but the pain was distant.  The only thing real was the sword in his hand, and in front of him, Mytho.  His entire existence narrowed down into fine focus and he knew exactly what he had to do.  Fakhir took a step forward, ignoring his body’s desire to collapse.  Then another.  
 “What do you think you can do in your state?” Krähe snarled from somewhere to his right.  
He barely heard her.  She wasn’t important to his mission.  Not right now.   
Fakhir tightened his grip on the sword and lifted it.  Muscles burned in protest, but they obeyed.  Before him was the column with the heart shard of love.  Just beyond it was the Prince.  “Mytho,” he breathed, “forgive me.”  
 “What are you—” Krähe gasped.  
Somewhere across the water, Tutu cried his name.  
He brought the sword down.  
Automatically and out of instinct that Fakhir somehow _knew_ he had, Mytho brought his own sword up to block the attack.  Instead of hitting the Prince as his trajectory intended, Fakhir’s blow was deflected.  A long-ago lesson flitted briefly through his mind… never, _never,_ block a blade edge to edge.  All it took was the twist of a wrist, a flick of the hand, a touch of pressure and the sharp edge of his blade struck off the edge of Mytho’s—and then _through_ it.  
The Prince gazed dumbly at his cleaved sword and Krähe screamed.  The two halves transformed into white birds of light which fled the darkness on swift wings.  Weaponless now, Mytho stared at him.  
Fakhir’s sword dropped to his side and he smiled.  “Now you won’t be able to go and senselessly shatter that heart shard,” he sighed.  Mission completed, his body gave in to weakness.  He stumbled one step back on the uneven, rocky shore, and fell.  Memory flashed in his mind.  
_Footsteps behind him.  Feathers in front of him.  A curse.  An oath.  A scream._  
_Blood.  Pain.  Ripping.  Tearing._  
_A face in the rain._  
Her.  
_Oh._  
 “Princess Tutu,” he breathed.  He remembered it clearly now, even as he fell.  Even as he hit the water and sank under its surface.  He remembered, and he knew why that memory terrified him.  Who wouldn’t fear death?  Yet his body failed the strength to fight it, to reach for the air denied him now.  Even if he could though, he saw the checkerboard had returned, the surface over his head was solid again.  And there she was, kneeling on the lake, his name on her lips.  Screaming.  
_A face in the rain.  Transcendentally beautiful.  He thought she was an angel._  
Because he was dying.  
Those _had_ been tears on her face—that girl, whoever she was.  Tears and blood.  Her tears.  His blood.  She _was_ crying.  
She was crying for him.

***

 “Fakhir!”  Tutu screamed.  _“Fakhir!”_ Again.  And again, and again, and again.  Her throat was worn raw and she beat her hands uselessly against the solid surface of the lake.  Her powers couldn’t reach beyond it, couldn’t will the water to bring him back.  She watched, helpless, as his pale face sank into inky darkness.  Wide eyes stared back at her, open.  Dead.  
Something horrible gaped in her chest.  Pain that stole her breath.  Her heart.  Her heart _hurt._  
Sobs caught in her throat, tears burned at her eyes.  “Fakhir…”  
 “Stupid knight.”  
Tutu felt Krähe’s presence at her back and rage stirred in the pit of her belly.  But it couldn’t overcome her grief.  She twisted, looking up at the wench, her vision blurry with weeping.  _Why?_ she thought.  _Why?_ her expression asked.   
She never said the word.  
Smiling cruelly, Krähe answered her anyway.  
 “Hilarion dies.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the ballet "Giselle", the titular character is a beautiful peasant girl who falls hopelessly in love with the prince, Albrecht (who despite being betrothed to the noble Bathilde, dons the guise of a peasant to court Giselle). The character of Hilarion is a local gamekeeper who is also in love with Giselle. In the second act, in one of the more visually stunning pieces of the ballet, Hilarion is confronted by the Wilis (vengeful spirits of women who were abandoned on their wedding days and died of broken hearts) while mourning at Giselle's gave and is forced to dance to near exhaustion, and then drowned in a nearby lake.


	28. Schwanensee

**_Swan Lake_ **

 

 _Blood on the checkerboard.  
_ Mytho stared at the hunched figure of the weeping girl where her knight had fallen beneath the quiescent water.  The image stirred something in his mind—a ghost of a memory—but it slipped away like smoke.  His hand stung where the hilt of his sword had lain.  He felt something stirring… _something,_ but whatever it was it wasn’t powerful enough to throw off the hypnotic fugue which had settled over his mind that night.  _That night._ The night memory and reality had clashed with fantasy.  When Krähe ripped out his heart.  When everything went grey.  
_Screams in the wind.  
_ Echoing eternally, swirling around the darkest recesses of his mind.  Screams of women.  Screams of children.  Screams of soldiers.  Of men.  Of beasts.  Of a dying swan.  
_Tears flow unanswered.  
_ He was numb.  The world existed only hazily around him.  Inside his mind the same song played over and over, chasing his sanity down into darkness.  Only Krähe’s commands had the power to break through.  But inside... inside it was only the same rhyme, looped time and again.  
_Battle’s commenced.  Darkness and death on a black and white floor.  
_ He stared at the girl.  At the place where the knight had fallen.  He could almost see another checkerboard, another battle, another night.  But it was lost behind the hypnotic voice whispering endlessly in his ear.  
_Princes and pawns netted in endless war—trapped in a grisly ballet of horror.  
_  “I won’t give up,” the girl is murmuring senselessly to the water.  The knight is gone, sunk beneath the surface.  The inky waves have turned red beneath where she kneels.  Death has come to this place too.  “I won’t fail, Fakhir.”  
He knew that name.  _Fakhir_.  His eyes went back to the water.  He cared about Fakhir didn’t he?  Hadn’t he once?  Or had he ever?  _Could_ he care?   
He’d cared about the knight.  His friend.  
He’d watched him die.  
_Knight to F1, sacrificed, slain.  Bishop takes Knight to no more rise again.  
__“Checkmate, my prince.”  
__Only one move remains.  
_ He had to break free of this.  Past and present, fantasy, reality, dream or memory—he couldn’t discern between them.  But he couldn’t shake off the fog that clouded his senses.   Dark red spread out around the girl, beneath whatever solidified the water under her.  A halo of blood.  White on red surrounded by black.   
_Black and white marble slick with red.  
_ The song in his mind went on.  
_A heart filled with hope poisoned by dread.  
_ Everything around him was clouded by it.  
_The battle won’t end until everything’s dead.  
_ The girl placed her hand one last time on the lake’s surface, palm down, her fingers spread wide.  “I will not fail to protect Mytho.”  The whispered words were a promise.  A vow.  A vow made in death is binding forever.  
_The Castle concedes to inevitable fate.  The triumphal King looks on in boundless hate.  
_  “You’ll pay for this, Krähe,” she growled suddenly, turning to face the other girl.  She got to her feet.  She looked familiar, someone he should remember.  Mytho tried, he _did_ , but everything—even memory—was suppressed by the song in his mind.  
_A cry from the back… the stars pause to wait.  
_  “You are powerless against me here, Tutu,” Krähe crooned.  “Now that we’ve expired that foolishness, it’s time for you to get on with it.  We have a deal, now hold up your end or suffer the consequences.”  
_An angel from heaven in vengeance descends.  
_  “You can’t shatter the Prince’s heart now,” the girl in white spat out.  Her anger was evident, yet even as she was angry her stance was easy.  Even her expression was serene.   
_To her rageless fury the checkerboard bends.  
_  “The Prince’s sword is gone.  Fakhir—” her voice broke, “Fakhir made sure of that.”  
_Queen takes Bishop.  
_  “Hmm,” Krähe harrumphed.  “A minor setback.”  
_Queen takes Bishop.  
_  “The deal is off.”  
_Queen takes Bishop.  
_  “Trust me Tutu, whether you hold up your end or not, you’re not leaving this place tonight.”  
_…a violent scene.  
_  “Do what you will, Krähe.  But I _will_ protect Mytho.”  
_Queen takes Bishop.  
_ Krähe grinned.  “Come on, heart shard of my beloved Mytho” she crooned.  Beside her, the red jewel on its pedestal glowed, then burst into light and reformed itself.   
_He_ stood before her.  Not him as he was now, but as he should be.  Mytho felt himself sway toward it, as gravity or something stronger tried to pull him in place.  But Krähe’s words stilled him.  Steadied him.  Paralyzed him.  
 “Good boy,” she sing-songed to the shard as one would a dog.  “Now Princess Tutu,” she held a black blade—a raven’s feather that seemed to emit darkness.  “Speak of your love to your heart’s content, or I’ll bury this blade in the Prince’s heart and even if you return the shard to him, all you will give him is hate.”  
_King takes Queen.  
_ The girl—Tutu—gaped at Krähe.  Her face was pale, familiar.  Oh so familiar.  
_Violence and crimson.  
__King takes Queen.  
_  “Now that you’ve finally found the resolve to vanish,” Krähe droned on, “Don’t keep us waiting.”  
_Red splashed on white.  
__King takes Queen.  
_ Mytho tried to push out the voice, push past the song roaring in his head.  _Something_ was happening, and he was powerless.  Slave to the fog in his mind.  Slave to the fugue.  All he could do was watch.  Again.  Powerless to stop anything.  Powerless to change anything.  _Again.  
__A mouth gaped in horror, a doll pinioned through, a terrible sorrow and more terrible truth.  Nothing can save her.  The angel screams.  King takes Queen.  
__King takes Queen._

***

Tutu lifted her tear stained face to stare into Krähe’s cold countenance.  The other girl—she refused to think of her as _Rue—_ stared back.  There was something hard and unforgiving behind those crimson eyes.  _Why?_ she wondered.  _Why is she doing this?  Any of it?  All of it??_   A lump rose in her throat, blocking her words, her air.  She choked back the sobs that wanted to escape.  
 “I refuse to vanish.”  
Even in her own ears, Tutu’s voice sounded small and pathetic.  She felt shredded inside.  She couldn’t stand to look down at her own feet where the water had turned red.  Where Fakhir’s pale face had disappeared, sunk to the depthless benthos of this godforsaken pit.  Her legs were shaking, tears were threatening behind her eyes, but she had to hold herself together.  She’d never expected to feel this way.  This pain was worse than any physical agony.  
_What is this?_ she wondered.  
Was it shock at watching someone die?  Grief at losing Fakhir—who’d gone from enemy to, well if not friend, then at least something?  Or was it helpless rage in the face of Krähe’s ultimatum?  Paralyzing fear at the awful choices left to her?  She didn’t know.  
 “I won’t vanish,” she whispered again, and she didn’t know if she was trying to convince Krähe or herself.   
The worst of it all was Mytho.  He was _right there._   And he’d done nothing.  Whatever spell Krähe had him under had left him entirely mutable to her will.  And apparently to nothing else.  He’d just stood there and watched Fakhir fall into the water.  And done nothing.  
She didn’t know why that felt like a betrayal.  All this time she’d worked to save the Prince, to restore the lost shards of his heart.  Now it felt like her own heart was the one shattered, as if some childlike belief that whatever it was _he could make it all better_ was destroyed.  Even as the thought came to her it tried to disappear in a flash of white light.  But the pain inside was too strong to let the light wipe that away, and it remained.  
_A sword and a promise.  
__A broken vow.  
__I have to save him.  
__“We’re going to lose…”  
_  “No,” Tutu said, surprised at the sound of her own voice now.  Because it sounded certain.  It sounded strong.  _No to everything.  No to vanishing.  No to giving in.  No to giving up.  No to letting you win.  
_ The other girl’s eyes widened at her sudden declaration.  “No?”  
_No.  
_ Fakhir died rather than let her vanish.  She couldn’t waste that.  She _wouldn’t_ waste that.  
_“You alone and nobody else could accept Princess Tutu’s fate so serenely.”  
_ She looked up, only realizing then that she’d been staring at the black checkerboard that stretched out across the lake.  She didn’t know why it was suiting—that checkerboard.  They were each of them only pieces placed upon it.  Pawns in a bigger game.  A game she was slated to lose.  _Or am I?_    
Her cheeks were still wet with tears, but her eyes were dry.  A smile graced her lips.  _Tutu’s fate isn’t to turn into a speck of light and vanish,_ she realized.  Her fate was to _love._ To love without ever any expectation of reciprocation.  But love doesn’t have to be spoken to be expressed.  Right?  
Fakhir’s words again, _“Why dancing?”  
__Why?  
_ Tutu’s smile grew.  _Because with dance, I can do this…_   Her eyes went past Krähe to the heart shard of love and she stepped almost instinctively into fourth.  She pushed down weariness, sorrow, and pain, and raised up en pointe.  Lifting arms that felt like lead, ignoring her heavy heart, her aching chest, her shaking limbs, Tutu swirled her hands overhead and then brought them down in the mime to dance.  An invitation… to the Prince’s heart.  
 “What’s this?” Krähe scoffed.  “More delays, Tutu?”  
Not delays.  _This_ was her answer.  Krähe wanted her to confess her love.  This was the only way she could.  “I cannot speak words of love to you,” she whispered, even as she slowly began to move atop the black checkerboard of the lake.  “But I can _dance_.”   
Krähe tossed back her head and laughed.  “So you mean to transcend words and convey your feelings through _choreography?”_   She propped a hand on one slim hip, her expression turning cold and cruel.  “And you think this will keep you from vanishing?  How very interesting.”    
Tutu barely heard her.  A tune played in her mind and seemed to echo from the very walls and shimmer across the surface of the lake.  She moved in time to it, her feet flitting softly across the strange stage, feather light.  Her arms were like wings at her sides, ready to carry her off on the faintest breeze.  All the power she had she poured into the dance.  Roots long dead began to twitch with life, the twisted trees at the center of the island started to bend and sway in time to the haunting melody.  Buds grew upon their branches.  Then at once, as she stretched her arms en haute, working leg lifted in attitude, they burst into flower and white petals filled the darkness.   
Krähe looked on with a glower that grew increasingly grim.  At the flower burst she leapt into action, jumping out onto the checkerboard with her own arms outstretched into make-believe wings.  Her fingers were crooked into long, pale claws at her sides.  “I wonder whose dance will charm the Prince’s heart?” she threatened.  Then she too joined the song.  
Tutu gasped.  Something hot and sharp blazed to life at her chest and stole the power she’d spun away.  The buds withered upon their branches, the roots shriveled and died.   
Krähe’s dance was erratic, violent and acrobatic, and weirdly beautiful in its own dark and twisted way.  Her movements mirrored Tutu’s in a bizarre pas de deux, and the melody that seemed to hover in the air around them sharpened, quickened, became something _else._ Tutu struggled to keep time with it.  It went on, this strange dance.  Krähe bleeding energy with every arabesque and fouette, Tutu’s serenity shining through each bourree and port de bras.  It was the black and white swan, battling for the Prince’s affection at the very heart of the lake.  Only in _this_ version there were no swans.  There was a crow…  
 “You know you can’t hope to win against me,” Krähe sneered as she spun by Tutu.  “Ultimately you are only borrowing the power of Princess Tutu.”  Her lips twisted into a triumphant smile, “Eh?”  
And a…  
 “Duck?”  
The music crescendoed.  “What?” Tutu’s breath caught on a panicked gasp and her ankle gave way beneath her.  
Krähe smirked, “You’re merely a sham of a princess.”  
The power which had spun away from her suddenly snapped back… and shattered.  Everything crashed in on her at once.  Pain.  Exhaustion.  Disappointment.  Loneliness.  Grief.  Fear.  Doubt.  She lost the steps to the dance and hit the ground hard, cracking her knees on the solid, watery stage.  _What?  What just happened?_ her panicked thoughts raced.  She barely managed to brace herself on shaking arms and stared down at the face reflected back at her from that black surface.  She didn’t see Tutu.  She still wore the clothes of the princess, but the collar of rubies at her throat was gone and in its place hung a familiar scarlet pendant.  She saw the poorest student of Gold Crown Academy.  The girl who always had detention.  
She tried to push herself up, to balance en pointe again, but her feet refused to work right.  Her body wouldn’t comply to the patterns in her head.  Everything she could do as Tutu was gone.  It was like she was… Aria.  
Or worse…  
Duck.  
Krähe cackled, still spinning on the pointe of her shoe several paces away.  “It seems at last you’ve realized your true form,” she sang.  “That miserable form we’re so used to seeing at the Academy.”  
Her soul shriveled inside her.  Yet still, she tried to dance.  _Pas de bourreé couru…_ but her feet wouldn’t work right.  She couldn’t turn out.  She couldn’t maintain her pointe work.  _First arabesque…_ her muscles wouldn’t obey.  Her arms wobbled, her knee remained bent, her leg at an odd angle.  _I can’t… I can’t dance!  
_  “How pitiful,” Krähe mocked her efforts.  “No one should ever have to watch such dancing.”  
Aria’s trembling limbs gave way and she fell to the flats of her feet, bent at the waist, arms hugged tightly around her middle as violent shivers contended with sobs to leave her shaking.  _She’s right!  I’m no princess.  I never should have tried to be something I’m not._   The tears started to fall, blurring the image reflected back at her.  _I’m not Tutu.  I’m not Aria.  I’m not even Duck._ And as she watched the face in the water below shifted into two bright blue eyes on either side of a black bill.  _I’m nothing more than a bird.  
_ Across the lake the Prince’s heart shard began to move.  It crossed the dark water toward Krähe, and the crow princess held her arms open to it.  “Yes!” she cried exultantly, “I am your one true princess.”  
Aria’s fingers curled into fists and she choked back a sob, ashamed of her own audacity, of her foolishness, of her failure.  The tears dropped from her cheeks and fell with a little rippling splash into water that was quite suddenly _wet_ beneath her.   
Then she was falling.  
The icy embrace of the lake shocked a single scream from her paralyzed lungs before the blackness closed over her head.  For one second she strained desperately for the surface, resisting the urge to breathe in the iciness.  One second passed, and she welcomed the darkness.  Her dress weighed her down, dragging her into the very same depths which had claimed Fakhir.  She could see Krähe’s gloating face, and then nothing but faint light straining down through the dark water.  The fight slowly left her, the cold and the dark winning against her exhausted body.  She raised her arm one last time, her hand reaching up toward that light.  It shown in rays through her pale fingers, and her weary mind froze on that image as her eyes fluttered closed.  _And why should a duck even have such a thought?  The memory of a hand holding someone else’s?  The longing to reach out and twine her fingers into his?  It made no sense.  
_ No sense.  
_“You’ll never know how much I love you.”  
_ But why would a Prince ever love a duck?  
_“What have you done?”  
__“I’m sorry.”  
__“Shh…”  
_ It was all slipping away.  _She_ was slipping away.  
_“…stay with me…”  
__“I’m right here…”  
_ Her hand went limp, no longer reaching for the surface, just floating above her as the darkness closed in.  
_…smile for me, please… just one last time.  
_ She’d tried.  She did.  But she wasn’t enough.  What hope did a duck ever have against all this?  
_“…are you stupid…?”  
__“Do you still want to save the poor Prince who lost his heart?”  
__“If you just vanish then who is going to restore Mytho’s heart to him?”  
_ Her life was flashing in white starbursts behind her eyes.  
_A familiar face.  
__A hand on her cheek.  
__“My soul, my sweet…  
__“…wake up!”  
_ Aria’s eyes flew open.  Strength poured back into her frozen limbs and she surged upward.  Her lungs burned, her abused muscles resisted the drag of the water.  But she kept going.  Light cracked in at the edges of darkness.  Her lungs were on fire.  She strained her fingers upward, fighting against the drag of her clothes, the weight of her body.  Her fingers breached the surface.  Then her hand.  Then her head.  
With one final, powerful scissor kick, Aria broke the surface of the lake and gasped in a lungful of air that scorched her flaming lungs and filled her aching body with life.  
From her place beside the Prince’s heart, Krähe turned scornful eyes upon her.  “You can’t even die correctly,” she grumbled.  
The words were almost lost between Aria’s gasping breaths, but they registered somewhere deep in her mind.  
 “Give up already,” Krähe growled.  “It’s over now.”  She turned, dismissing the floundering girl as no longer consequential.  Her eyes fell upon the glowing shard of the Prince’s heart, and she traced a finger across its transparent cheek.  “As for you, my love, I’ll put you to sleep under eternal darkness so that no matter what interloper appears, you will never again awaken.”  
 “Okay,” the shard murmured back.  
Aria slapped the surface of the lake with both hands.  “No!” she cried out.  
Krähe turned startled eyes upon her enemy.  
_No!_ Aria’s own voice screamed in her mind.  _Tutu could fix this!  Tutu could save the Prince!_ But she wasn’t Tutu, was she?  She never really had been.  Krähe was right about that.  She was just a duck.  
_“I want you to restore my heart, Tutu…_ ” Mytho’s words.  _“What do you think of me?  I want to know…”  
_ What would _Mytho_ think if he knew the truth?  If he truly knew the nature of the pathetic creature attempting the monumental task of restoring his heart?  
Fakhir had known.  
Fakhir…  
And yet at the end he hadn’t called her Duck.  He hadn’t even called her Aria.  He’d called her… _“Princess Tutu.”  
_ And that’s when the truth that should have been so obvious all along struck her squarely in the face.  It didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter the face she wore.  It didn’t matter the name she bore.  It _didn’t matter._ Because whoever she was, whatever she was, with all that she was—she loved him.  She loved the Prince.  And there was power in _that.  
_ Aria’s hands went flat against the surface of the water in which she treaded.  “Fakhir,” she breathed.  “I won’t give up.”  She pressed down, leaning her weight onto her arms.  
_It doesn’t matter if I’m a duck, if I’m a girl, if I’m a princess.  If I give up now I will only go back to being a duck, and the Prince will go back to wandering.  But if I try...  
_ Instead of her hands sinking into the lake, her body rose impossibly out of it.  Lifting her torso out of the water, she braced a knee against the surface, then a shoe.  And then she stood.  
Krähe’s eyes went wide.  Her already pallid face turned bone-white.  “That’s… that’s impossible.”  
_“No,”_ Aria declared, pulling herself to her full height, poised and perfect atop the water.  _Whoever I am, this power is mine.  
_ The haunting melody that had filled the cavern reprised.  Aria leaned her weight onto the pointe of one shoe, then the other.  She stretched her arms gracefully, fingers and hands twirling lightly in the air, and then brought her hands together, crossing them over her heart.  
Krähe’s gasp at the mime for love was audible throughout the chamber, her crimson eyes were wide.  “That—that isn’t—”  
Aria slid one foot forward and lifted into developpé croisé, one upraised hand held high, fingers curled as if her palm was pressed to another’s.  She had danced these steps before, but not alone.   
 “A pas de deux?” Krähe ridiculed her.  “Now you’re just deluding yourself.”  
Aria leaned back, imagining the hand supporting her at the small of her back as her arm swept through the air.  Her muscles strained to hold her.  But hold her they did.  She moved to first arabesque, and this time it was perfect.  She could almost sense the presence that had stood behind her, the hands that had been at her waist as she fought to promenade en pointe.  _I wish you here with me._ She thought the words with burning eyes.  _But even if you’re not, you gave me the strength to finish this…  
__Fakhir._          
She had danced these steps with Fakhir.  
Now in her head she danced them with the Prince.  _I want you to be here.  I want you to be strong and gentle supporting me.  
_ Krähe chuckled at her efforts.  “Dancing a pas de deux alone?  She grasped the hand of the heart shard and spun into its arms.  “How perfect for the wretch you are.”  With the Prince’s heart supporting her, she fell back into an elegant fall.  “But I wonder what you’re going to do for the moves you can’t do alone.”  
Aria ignored her, dipping into a penche, then rising back into arabesque.  _The real me is just a duck with no powers of my own, but if I have you…_ she dipped into a low plie… _I can transform!_   Surging upward, Aria pushed powerfully off the floor into the facsimile of a lift, bent backward as if two hands supported her below.  
Krähe gaped at her.  “A lift?  Impossible!”  
For a moment Aria hovered there, suspended by nothing but moonbeams and shadows.  But there was no Prince holding her aloft.  No partner to support her.  Yet instead of falling in that moment, she flew, surprising even herself as her momentum carried her in a full arc, flipping head over heals to land on her feet.  
 “Incredible!” the crow princess muttered in stark disbelief, wide eyes wild in her pale face.  
Aria’s own shock gave way to giddy relief, and a strange elation surged through her.  She lifted her leg in attitude, promenading again with the nonexistent support of her invisible partner.  _My feelings for you are what make me Princess Tutu,_ she thought all the words she dare not say aloud, hoping to convey them through her dance.  _In truth, you must not have wanted to lose your heart.  All the laughter, the tears, loving someone… You threw that all away to protect people’s happiness.  
_ She spun into a set of psuedo-supported pirouettes.  _The person who possesses that kind heart is the true you._ Aria’s legs shook as she bent her body into a supported fall without the support, and her ribs screamed at her as she lifted away from it.  _And the truth is…_ she raised her eyes to the island where Mytho stood.  _I love you.  
_ Aria gasped.  
She had thought the words so loudly in her head for a moment she was afraid she’d spoken them.  And maybe she had, because Mytho, the _real_ Mytho was standing on that rocky island looking right at her.  His eyes were glowing, his features incandescent.  He raised one hand and held it out to her.  
 “Look,” his soft voice echoed across the water.  “I’m right here, Princess Tutu.”  
Something broke and came together inside her.  The world blurred into tears, and Aria abandoned the dance to run gracelessly across the water.  Mytho held his arms open and she fell into them.  “Mytho,” she sobbed, and then buried her face into his chest and wept.

***

Krähe’s heart broke as she watched Mytho catch his princess.  The Prince’s heart abandoned her, and she found herself retreating.  This wasn’t how this was meant to happen.  _She_ was supposed to win.  Tutu was supposed to vanish.  She’d promised the storyteller.  Drosselmeyer had promised _her.  
_  “You win,” she murmured brokenly, rejoining the shadows at the edges of the room, disappearing again into darkness.  The room began slowly to fade as well, the illusion of the lake returning to shadow and night.  “No matter what I do,” her hands covered her face, her heart cracked in her chest, “my feelings never reach him.”

***

Mytho wrapped his arms around the weeping girl, sorrow and affection warring in his heart.  And his heart, he could _feel_ his heart.  The song that fogged his mind was gone and his head was clear.  “Tutu,” he murmured, stroking a hand through her hair.  The gesture seemed natural, instinctive.  
Her face came up.  Watery, red-rimmed eyes met his.  
 “The heart shard.”  
At his words she visibly pulled herself together and stepped away from him.  She held her hands to the heart shard which had joined them on the shore of the island.  In her palms it reformed.  
Mytho welcomed the return of the shard, closing his eyes in anticipation of the memory which would also return.  He felt the familiar burning against his chest, the familiar feeling of pain like sensation returning.  He waited for the memories to resurface, but there was no flash of images.  There was only…  
_Her.  
_ He opened his eyes and there she stood.  He blinked, uncomprehending, and shook his head, feeling like he’d woken up inside a dream.  He hoped he would never wake again.  Almost without thought he reached for her, grasping both her arms and staring into her tear-stained face with an expression of utter stupefaction.  _How can she be here?  How is she alive?_ He drank her in, struck by her splendor, her presence.  He couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him.  His beautiful girl.  His princess.  His heart.  Here.  _Alive.  
_ He started to smile, her name on the very tip of his tongue.  And then reality struck.  
_The curse.  
_ Fear froze the blood in his veins and the smile on his face.  _That’s_ how she was here.  That’s how she was alive.  And the only reason he recognized her now was because of the shard she’d returned.  _My heart_.  _She’s returning my heart to me, but if she does…_   The fear turned to terror and his blood turned to ice.  _No!_ It wasn’t worth it.  It wasn’t worth _her.  
_ His fingers spasmed on her arms, his grip tightening, and he could tell by the confusion on her face that he was hurting her.  But he had to warn her.  She had to understand.  He opened his mouth to speak.  He had to tell her _now_ while he still remembered!  He had to tell her to stop!  But just as the words were forming in his mouth, something else unfurled in his chest.  A small feather of darkness swirled around his healing heart. It spiraled through his chest, expanded through his body, through his mind.  The knowing he’d had disappeared and he blinked again.   
     Mytho didn’t see _her_ there anymore.  He saw only Tutu.  
Around them the illusion of the lake shattered into shadow and darkness fell crushingly upon them.  In the distance, a single spark of light glimmered through the gloom.  
 “Let’s get out of here,” Mytho murmured.  
 “Yes,” she agreed, and allowed him to lead her away.

 

 

 


	29. Durch den Spiegel

**_Through the Looking Glass_ **

 

Breathing hurt.  
That was his last conscious thought as liquid ice and fire filled his lungs.  He’d held out as long as he could, fought with all that he had, gone as far as he dared and in the end it was all for naught.  The failed knight.  The broken antihero.  And now here in the watery blackness that would be his tomb, Fakhir finally succumbed to the futility of these final seconds of life.  With one fateful inhalation, the frozen water filled his chest and he knew he was going to die.  
And it _hurt._  
It hurt that he failed.  Failed in his mission to protect Goldkrone Towne from the Raven, failed to protect Mytho from the Crow, failed to protect _her._   Strangely, it was the last one which stung the worst.  Maybe because _that_ was the only mission that wasn’t chosen for him in childhood.  Perhaps because _that_ was the only quest he’d undertook for himself.  Perhaps… but it didn’t matter.  In the end he failed, a broken useless knight, and perhaps it was fitting that this was to be his end trapped beneath shadows in a watery grave futilely trying to breathe in the blackness.  Futile, because that’s what his mission turned out to be.  It was right that he should hurt.  He should suffer for that failure.  It was right that the very breath he drew, by which he’d made those broken vows, should be the thing that killed him now.  He welcomed death.   
But death didn’t come.  
Somewhere beyond the blackness that overtook his mind, something else moved.  Pain broke through the fog in his brain and he was slammed against something hard.  His head cracked on stone, and a heavy pressure struck him in the chest.  Once, twice, three times.  The liquid ice and fire that filled his chest reversed its course and he coughed and gagged, turning reactively to one side as the water evacuated itself from his lungs.  His body took over, instinct trying to gasp at the air that was suddenly available, and for several moments he was slave to the baser instinct to _live._  
Only when he was finally able to breathe again did the cold register in his mind.  Bone-deep and insidious, it turned his skin blue as his breath fogged in the night air.  The world around him was still dark, but it wasn’t the fateful blackness of the tunnels.  He could see stars overhead, the glow of streetlights, and Fakhir recognized that he was in the empty square near the kriegerbrunnen.  Not far away the steeple of St. Godfrey's was framed against the stars.  He didn’t know how he’d gotten there or why he was alive now—for however long.  He couldn’t even shiver, he was suddenly so cold.  Summer had long since gone from the night this close to fall, and he favored the temperature was not much above freezing.  
He moved to sit up, leaning against the fountain behind him, and only then did he discover that his hand was still wrapped around the hilt of the Lohengrin sword.  Somehow it had survived his sojourn in the frozen lake.  Dropping the blade, he wrapped his arms around himself and looked around, certain he’d see Mytho and Tutu somewhere nearby.  No one else could have pulled him out of the tunnels.  Instead, he spotted a vaguely familiar silhouette nearby, her back to him, calmly moving as she apparently made a fire in the shadows.  
 “Wh-who are you?” Fakhir asked through frozen lips.  
 “I am Edel,” the woman answered in a sing-song voice.  “And you are Fakhir.”  Her words were strange, wooden and rehearsed, and when she turned toward him he recognized her at last in the glow of the streetlight.  She was the woman he’d seen in the Antiquariat, and again by the Fool’s Mirror when she showed them the way into the tunnels.  Edel.  
 “Who are you?” he asked again, his own straits forgotten as anger and suspicion flooded through him.  “Where are Tutu and Mytho?”  
 “They will be along when they will,” she answered simply, “If Tutu can beat Krähe at her game.  But you would not have lived to greet the victor if I did not save you.”  
 “Why?” he demanded, reaching for the sword.  He felt too weary to stand, but his fingers closed over the hilt.  “Why did you save me?”  
 “Because puppets cannot always be pulled by their strings,” she sighed.  
 “Puppets?” his eyes went wide, and then flicked to the fire she was building.  He saw what he hadn’t seen before—what his mind refused to register.  Edel’s left arm and leg lay dismembered in a pile where she knelt, as she one-handedly struck sparks from a silver cigarette lighter over them.  And they were not of flesh, but wood.  Puppet parts, hinged once for movement, broken now, with bits of string still dangling from them.  _That’s what she’d said before, that she was a puppet._   A sliver of smoke rose up from the pile, and a light flared, undercutting the silhouette of her painted face and in that light Fakhir saw the truth of her nature.   
Edel was a living marionette.  
“What are you…?” he gasped.  
A sad sort of smile crossed her face, “I am as I was made and nothing more.”  She turned toward him then as the small flame she had created began to grow, “May happiness be granted to those who accept their fate,” she murmured.  “May glory be granted to those who defy it.”  As she spoke, to his horror, she pulled off her other leg and threw it to the growing flames.  
 “No!” he called out, dropping the sword and reaching for her as she pulled herself into the growing fire.  He winced against the movement, pain shooting shards of fire through his frozen body.  He’d forgotten about his wounds.  “You’ll die!”  
 “So I shall,” she spoke from out of the flames, “If that is the price of glory I am willing to pay it.  I never knew happiness anyway.”  
Fakhir collapsed to his knees.  He tried to reach into it to pull her out, but the flame burned his skin and he pulled back.  “Why?” he shook his head, “Why do this?”  
 “For one to pass safely through, another one must die,” she smiled at him, framed by the jumping, leaping flames that sparked around her.  “That is the price that must be paid.”  
 “Me,” Fakhir realized suddenly, a terrible dread settling in his stomach.  “You’re sacrificing yourself for me.”  He looked down at his chest where the black crow’s blades had pierced his skin.  Gaping wounds began to close magically as the warmth of Edel’s fire seeped into his bones.  
Edel’s eyes softened compassionately.  “This story needs a new writer, Fakhir, and if I had a choice of one, I choose you.”  
He shook his head, feeling useless and broken.  “I can’t,” he whispered.  
 “You can,” she replied.  “It was your blade that cut my strings and set me free.  You can change how the story ends.”  
 “I don’t understand.”  
 “You will,” she murmured, the fire beginning to blacken her face.  “In time you will, and then you’ll know.  When kings become pawns and crows become swans, when light turns to darkness then you will know how the pen is mightier more than the blade, for the blade can break war but the pen can bring peace.  Then if there’s a grace to be found beyond death, glory will also be happiness.”  
Fakhir shook his head, feeling suddenly young and small, and very vulnerable as he hadn’t felt since he was a boy in his mother’s house.  “No,” he begged her, “no, there has to be another way.”  
Her smile then was beautiful and awful, terrible and wonderful.  “You are the other way,” she breathed, “promise me...”  
 “Anything,” he hastily vowed.  
She reached out of the fire, past him to where the Lohengrin sword had been dropped, and pressed the hilt of the blade into his hand.  “Defy your fate.”  
Fakhir didn’t know what to say, or what to do.  There he knelt, looking into the fire as it consumed her, blackened her face and burnt up her limbs, and by that sacrifice of herself the cold that had crushed him faded away.  His clothes were dried, and the dread of the icy night was no longer a threat.  But Edel burned.  
One life for another.  It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t enough.  And it was a price that _he_ should have paid.  Not her.  He looked down at the sword in his hands and wondered about her words.  They were nonsensical and meaningless.  He wasn’t a character in this story, he was simply a bystander who’d gotten wrapped up in it when it escaped the pages.  The author was long gone now and there was no one left to write it.  Yet she showed him—showed him how the story was continuing, how it was writing itself.  But Tutu was the one doing that, not him.  He was nothing.  A failed, want-to-be knight.  His hands closed around the sword in fists and he looked up again, not at all surprised to see Princess Tutu running toward him with Mytho at her side.  
He didn’t see where they came from, if they’d come out of the tunnels near here, or simply appeared out of the night.  He was beginning to wonder if anything they’d experienced since Edel opened that hidden door had been real.  Maybe it was all a sick illusion.  
“Fakhir!” Tutu called to him.  She fell to her knees beside him, her eyes raking over his shredded clothing looking for injuries that were no longer there.  “Fakhir?”  
     He was silent staring at her.  Saints and angels, but she looked like hell.  Her hair had come down from its prim twist and hung in sodden curls over her shoulders.  There was a smudge on her cheek—dirt or a bruise—it was impossible to tell by the firelight.  Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red from crying.  The rest of her looked like she'd dragged herself here.  Princess Tutu never looked less than perfect.  But then this wasn't Tutu.  Instead of the collar of rubies at her throat, the jeweled pendant hung on its chain around her neck.  Whatever he'd missed in that hellhole, it must have been climactic.   
Fakhir looked past Aria to the Prince.  “I see you got Mytho.  Thank you.”  
Tears shimmered in her eyes, “Because you were there,” she murmured.  “I was strong thanks to you.”  
The fire popped and Aria jumped, turning toward it as if she had only just noticed the blaze of light.  Fakhir saw the moment she realized what was at the heart of the flames, and he flinched at the dawning horror in her eyes.  
 “Miss Edel!” she screamed, lunging for the flames.  
Hastily he reached for her before she could burn herself, catching one slim arm while Mytho grasped the other.  Together they both held her back from the fire’s edge.  
 “So you were the one who led us out of that dark place,” Mytho spoke cryptically to the fire.  His tone belied a solemn respect.  
Aria struggled against them, “But why!?”  
Edel smiled, despite the flames slowly consuming her.  “I was merely a puppet mimicking the actions of humans with emotions.”  
She shook her head violently, sending her tears flying.  “No, Miss  Edel—”  
 “Earnestly crying,” Edel went on in that strange sing-song.  “And getting angry and laughing.  Perhaps I was jealous of you for that.  However, I have no regrets.  So don’t cry.”  
Aria wasn’t fighting anymore.  Fakhir released her and she braced her hands against the ground, her head hanging.  He understood.  He hadn’t even known the woman—creature—Edel, yet he felt like railing against this fate too.  
 “I can’t do that,” she muttered brokenly, tears still streaming down her face.  
Edel smiled.  She reached one blackened, ashy hand out of the flames and captured a glittering tear.  “Remember child, sometimes being who you truly are means accepting your own limitations.  Sometimes it means exceeding them.”  
Aria looked up, meeting Edel’s soft gaze.  “May those who accept their fate…” her words were a whisper.  
Edel’s smile grew, “May those who defy it…” she sighed.  The fire crackled, the wood that had been her arm and legs settled as the flames consumed it.  “I want to see you dance with the Prince before the end.”  
 “No,” Aria shook her head again, “Don’t say this is the end!”  
 “Please,” the puppet entreated, “Dance for me.  A pas de deux with the Prince.”  
Fakhir’s chest went tight.  He felt like a piece of himself was dying too and his eyes went to Mytho.  Mytho looked grim.  
The Prince crouched beside Aria, his hands on her shoulders, “Let us dance.”  
 “No,” the word was a whimper.  She shook her head again, desperate, despairing.  
 “Tutu.”  
A strangled sob escaped her throat.  
Fakhir closed his eyes and turned away.  He couldn’t stand to watch.  Yet he couldn’t stand not to.  He looked back in time to see Aria climb to her feet and turn to the Prince, an expression of open heartbreak on her face.  Yet she took his hand and he led her out into the square, out where there was room.  And together they started to dance.

***

From his place in limbo, the spirit of the old storyteller rocked in his chair and frowned at the flowing sands of time where Princess Tutu danced with the Prince by the gory light of his once-faithful burning puppet.  It had hurt more than he expected it to when the creature betrayed him.  Immolating herself was the only fitting end, he decided.  She'd known her servitude to him—and what measly life she had—was spent the moment she went off script and dragged that useless boy out of the dregs.  
 “Use puppets too long and they start becoming attached to things other than their strings,” he grumbled as he rocked.  “Like people’s _feelings._ ”   
Still, she’d been a faithful servant.  He might even miss her.  
 “Quite the fantasy you’ve woven here,” an unexpected voice interrupted his reverie.  
Once upon a time that voice might have sent shivers down his spine, but since he’d silenced the throat of the specter speaking it now and was himself only spirit and dust, he shrugged his shoulders instead.  “What are you doing here?”  
 “A soul can’t check in on an old nemesis?” the gravelly tone inquired politely.  Spectral footsteps, an effect sounded purely for dramatic flair and little else, announced the undesired proximity of his intruder.  “It’s not the tragedy you intended, is it?”  
 “There’s still time for the tale to play out,” the spirit growled back unhappily.  
A cold chuckle vibrated at his ghostly back.  “Time is one thing you no longer have in abundance, old crow.”  
Dread prickled its way down his insubstantial spine as he watched the princess dancing with her prince, reflecting out of the flowing sands of time—the full length gilt-edged mirror before him.  The edges of the mirror were cracked.  Veins spiderwebbed across its surface.  It was growing thin.  The sands were running out.  
 “I suppose you’re betting on that boy of yours besting me?” he asked, pushing aside his niggling fears.  
The presence behind him laughed outright.  “I wouldn’t concern myself with the Prince, _Drosselmeyer._ That is the name you prefer, is it not?”  
 “I’ve had so many, what difference does it make?” the storyteller grumbled.  
He could almost feel the gloating grin of his enemy.  “You underestimate your little duck,” the specter warned him.  The echoing quality of its voice told him his old enemy was already fading away.  Good riddance for that.  “And there aren’t so many pages left in the tale,” the words resonated out of oblivion.  “I don’t think you’ll like the ending she’ll write for you… Raven.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes Kapitel des Eies, the first book of Princess Tutu: The Untold Story! I hope you are all enjoying the tale so far. I'm going to take a few months off to get a head start on the next part, which will be the exciting conclusion of the aired anime. The upcoming installment, Kapitel des Jugens, will begin posting in January of 2019. If you've enjoyed the story, please let me know in the comments below, and I hope you'll come back in the new year. Until then, happy reading!


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